A Toxic Trousseau

by Juliet Blackwell

  Maya and I exchanged looks.

  “Soooo,” I ventured as soon as the discussion died down a little, “does anyone know how to get in touch with Scarlet?”

  Several shrugs and a flurry of shaking heads.

  “Sorry,” said the man who had introduced himself as Rolando. “We see each other here, but to tell you the truth I didn’t even know anyone’s name until today. I know the animals, mostly.”

  “Me, too,” said Graydon with a laugh, and the others nodded in agreement.

  “I know Scarlet from here, and I also saw her at the vintage store sometimes,” said Eleanor. “Maybe she worked there part-time? I don’t go in there very often, but Cody and I live down the block, the apartment building on the other side of the bank. So we walk by all the time.”

  “Usually on the way to the cupcake store, to be honest,” said Cody with a smile.

  “You mentioned that Autumn—the owner of the vintage store—seemed to be under the weather, too?”

  Cody shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like I know her that well or anything. I’m telling you, not to sound like a broken record, but in this neighborhood we all know each other from this dog park or that cupcake shop. Makes you think about what might bring urban neighbors together, right? A shared love of pets and frosting—that’s the heart of the place.”

  Eleanor looked at Cody with affection shining in her light eyes. “That’s beautiful. Who knew a computer programmer would have the soul of an artist?”

  He grinned and shrugged. “I’m, like, totally a poet, and didn’t even know it.”

  “And Autumn seemed ill?” I tried to bring the conversation back but realized that at this point everyone was starting to gaze at me warily. I tried to cast a bit of a reassuring spell to encourage them to feel comfortable speaking to me. I got the sense that here at the dog park the conversation tended to be a bit more organic and meandering.

  “I guess,” Cody said with a shrug, clearly wishing he hadn’t said anything. “She just looked a little green around the gills, if you know what I mean. Or maybe, I dunno, last time I saw her she seemed angry with Renee, too, and left the shop without buying anything. I mean, who does that?”

  “Right?” said Eleanor. “I can’t imagine leaving that shop without a cupcake!”

  “Do you remember what they were arguing about?” I asked.

  He shook his head and threw the ball for Mr. Bojangles.

  “Sorry if we’re asking a lot of questions,” said Maya, clearly noticing that the crowd was wearying of the inquisition. “It’s just that . . . I don’t know if you heard, but Autumn Jennings passed away yesterday.”

  “What?” Eleanor asked. Everyone looked stunned. “What happened?”

  “I think you’re right; she was sick,” Maya said. “Lily and I went to talk with her and found her in pretty bad shape. We called the paramedics, and that’s how we ended up taking care of Loretta. So we’re here today to try to find out a little more about her. We thought maybe Scarlet could tell us something, or maybe take Loretta.”

  “I doubt she’d be able to offer Loretta a home,” said Eleanor with a shake of her head. “I think she was having a hard time as it was, finding an affordable place to live in the city. A place for a dog as big as Loretta . . . ?”

  “That’s like the Holy Grail in this city,” said Jessica, a young woman with long dreadlocks. “I had to do some fancy footwork to find a place that allowed my little beagle.”

  Everyone nodded in commiseration.

  “I’d still love to talk to her,” I said, handing my card out to everyone in the group. “If you happen to see her or hear from her, would you let me know?”

  “I can’t believe what you’re saying, though, about Autumn,” said Eleanor. “She’s dead? What happened? What did she have? Do you think Cody’s right, that Scarlet got the same thing?”

  “Is it, like, ebola or bird flu or something?” asked the young woman with dreadlocks.

  A few folks edged back, probably without meaning to. I realized I might start a neighborhood panic if I wasn’t careful.

  “I don’t think so. I mean, I’m no expert and I don’t really know what the doctors found, but it might have been something environmental. Perhaps . . . a poison of some sort. I think now they’re focusing on trying to figure out whether it was accidental or on purpose.”

  “On purpose?” asked Eleanor. “You mean she might have killed herself?”

  “I don’t really—”

  “She didn’t seem all that happy, to tell you the truth. Her husband died a couple of years ago. No family, lived above her store . . .”

  “She didn’t have any relatives?”

  “I was in the store once around Thanksgiving, and Scarlet was grousing about having to go visit her family in Missouri, and I remember Autumn telling her she was lucky to have a family to complain about,” Eleanor said.

  “That’s really sad,” said Rolando. “To think she might not have anyone to mourn her.”

  A moment of silence followed. As people do in times of stress, we turned to watch the antics of the dogs: Two were playing tug-of-war with what looked like an old sock; a young pup was bouncing around Loretta, trying to entice her to play; one dignified old pooch with a graying muzzle lay in a patch of shade, sniffing the air. I thought about how animals typify the teachings of Zen: enjoying the here and now, not asking for anything more. Living every moment.

  “Well,” said Ling. She called her dog and attached his leash to a teal rhinestone collar. “On that note, I’m going to go home and call my mother. Nice to meet you, Lily. If I see Scarlet I’ll let her know you’re looking for her.”

  “Thanks,” I said, though if Scarlet knew I was looking for her, she’d be sure to run in the opposite direction. “If nothing else, maybe let her know about Autumn? If Scarlet’s not feeling well, either, it’s possible she needs medical attention.”

  “That’s a sobering thought,” murmured Cody.

  “Aw, man, I hope she’s okay,” said Eleanor, looking troubled.

  Most of the others followed Ling’s lead, calling their dogs and heading home. Loretta had ventured all of three feet away from us and was currently enthralled with whatever scents she could pick up from the trunk of a nearby oak tree. Mr. Bojangles brought his ball back to Cody and Eleanor several times, hopping around excitedly, and Cody obediently picked it up and threw it clear across the park. Mr. Bojangles chased it, long tongue hanging out, ecstatic.

  “Cody, you don’t suppose . . . ,” Eleanor began.

  “No,” said Cody with a firm shake of his head.

  “What?” I urged. “Did something occur to you? About Scarlet, or Autumn?”

  “It’s just . . .”

  “Oh, come on, Eleanor,” Cody scoffed. “That’s just a stupid rumor.”

  “I’d still like to hear it,” I said.

  “I have this, like, friend? And she was in Autumn’s store once and overheard her on the phone saying she thought she was . . . cursed.”

  Chapter 11

  “Lily knows a thing or two about curses,” Maya said, her tone matter-of-fact. “She once helped a man who had a love curse on him.”

  “Really?” Eleanor asked, fixing her pale blue gaze on me. She was probably in her midtwenties, maybe pushing thirty, but with that fine hair and freckles it was easy to see what she must have looked like as a kindergartner. “You, like, know about things like that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I think in that case the man was his own worst enemy, believing he would never find love and therefore sabotaging himself. He’s involved with a very nice woman now.”

  “But you do believe there’s such a thing as curses?” asked Eleanor. “Cody says I’m ridiculous, but I have to wonder . . .”

  Cody rolled his eyes.

  “What curse are
we talking about?” I asked. I had brushed up on hereditary curses to try to help a man named Bartholomew Woolsey, who believed himself to be suffering under a curse laid upon a Puritan ancestor. But the truth was that such curses were extraordinarily rare. And in Bart’s case, I still wasn’t sure whether the curse had succeeded through magic, or whether Bart and his family had so believed in the curse that they’d manifested the results. That was the problem with curses, and with magic in general—it was very complicated.

  “Well, not long ago, Autumn got hold of a trousseau for her shop. And according to what my friend said, she began to think it was cursed.”

  “A cursed trousseau?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Why would a trousseau have a curse attached to it?” asked Maya.

  Cody made a dismissive noise and wandered off to play with Mr. Bojangles.

  “He doesn’t believe.”

  “But you do?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “I’m not sure. But now that you tell me about poor Autumn, it makes a person wonder, right?”

  “Do you know anything about the supposed curse?”

  “The way I heard it, it had to do with this feud between a shoeshine boy and a rich guy, and then one of their fiancées died from a cursed trousseau. Or something like that. I looked it up online after my friend told me about it, but I forget the details.”

  “So you think the curse is still on the trousseau, and that’s what killed Autumn?”

  “It’s possible, right? I mean, otherwise she, what, just got sick and keeled over? Right after buying it? That’s sort of unusual, isn’t it?”

  “Unusual, yes,” said Maya. “But I’m not sure I would jump straight to a case of a cursed trousseau. More likely a case of bad seafood or lead poisoning or something. People die of all sorts of things, every day. Even seemingly healthy people keel right over from a heart attack, embolism, stroke . . .”

  “I declare, Maya, you are a regular ray of sunshine.”

  She smiled. “I try. I’m just saying, people die and it’s a tragedy, but it’s hardly ever the fault of frilly corsets.”

  “My point exactly,” said Cody, using a wet wipe to clean his hands as he rejoined our trio.

  “It’s pretty funny,” Eleanor said. “You’ll never meet anyone more cynical about the occult than Cody, but he works for the Rodchester House of Spirits, of all places!”

  “The one in San Jose?” I asked. That was certainly a coincidence, and coincidences rarely boded well in my life.

  “Yeah, have you been?” asked Eleanor.

  “No, but I’ve been meaning to go,” I said. Now, more than ever. “In fact, a friend of mine is having an overnight birthday party there in a couple of days.”

  “Really? Cool,” said Cody. “It’s a new thing we’ve been offering; we’ve already had several bookings. I’d love to hear how it goes.”

  “But I take it you don’t really believe the house is haunted?”

  He seemed to hesitate. “Well, obviously the sales team likes to exploit that idea; people seem excited by it. But, I dunno, I think it’s an amazing place just as it is, a true architectural wonder; why do they have to come up with spooky stories about it? But I was raised not far from there by a pair of computer engineers who thought of it as a historic monument. Probably the acorn didn’t fall far from the tree; I’m into computer science, too. So maybe I’m not the target audience.”

  “I noticed a brochure for the Rodchester House in Autumn’s shop, as it happens.”

  “Yeah, I pass ’em out from time to time, leave some at the local shops. I gave one to Scarlet a few weeks ago; she wanted to try to get a job there, or at least volunteer. She was always looking out for interesting things like that.”

  “Do you think Scarlet believed the Rodchester House was haunted?” I wasn’t sure why this would be pertinent, but it seemed important to know whether I was dealing with a believer or a skeptic.

  “I have no idea. I mentioned I worked for them, and she got excited, asked me about maybe getting a job. I gave her the brochure, but like I told her, I’m not actually involved with the house per se. I’m just a computer guy: I maintain their Web site; that’s about it.”

  “And he does some of the graphic design work—he put together those brochures, and a beautiful catalog of all the collections!” Eleanor said, holding his hand and beaming up at Cody.

  It dawned on me that without his beard, he would look as young as she. Amazing how certain style choices can age a person; like looking back at high school graduation pictures from the 1950s and thinking everyone looked about forty years old.

  “But the cool thing is he’s not even on-site. He gets to work from home, and so do I,” Eleanor added. “That way, we hardly ever have to be apart from each other, or Mr. Bojangles. Just our own nice little family.”

  “Speaking of work,” said Cody, checking an old-fashioned wristwatch, “I really should be getting back. Working from home means I get to set my own schedule, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have to show results.”

  I thanked them for their time and watched as they leashed their dog and walked away.

  Loretta sniffed lazily at a scruffy bush, and I sipped my now nearly cold coffee.

  “Do you think that much togetherness could really work for a couple?” Maya asked. “I mean, wouldn’t it be hard for you and Sailor to work and live together?”

  I choked on my swig of coffee and quickly dissolved into a full-fledged coughing fit. Maya patted me on the back ineffectually, but she couldn’t hold back the chuckle.

  “Sorry,” she said, trying to stifle her smile. “I’m guessing this theme’s a little . . . fraught?”

  “I just hadn’t really thought about it,” I wheezed. “It would take a lot. On both our parts.”

  “It’s not a terrible idea, you and Sailor moving in together,” mused Maya as we headed back to the car. I considered putting Loretta’s leash back on as law declared, but she was so mellow it was hard to imagine the necessity.

  “I mean,” Maya continued, “you two are pretty darned cute together.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that before.” I tried to keep the images at bay, but they flooded my mind: waking up in Sailor’s arms every morning, cuddling in bed, gazing at each other over steaming cups of coffee; him coming home at the end of the day as I was closing up shop, tending to the receipts and the cash in the register; locking the front door and climbing up to the apartment, fixing dinner together for us and Oscar; the sounds of Oscar’s snores emanating from his cubby over the fridge while Sailor and I shared a last glass of wine . . .

  Or, I supposed Sailor might not want to live in my apartment. I surely wouldn’t want to live in his dreary place in Chinatown. So then would we have to look for rentals . . . ? As the dog park group had pointed out, finding a place to rent in San Francisco—especially with a pet pig—would be a challenge. I wouldn’t shy away from using some magic to increase my chances, but it was still a long shot. And would I be willing to leave my terrace botanical garden behind and start again? No. There was no way I was going to move.

  So that left Sailor moving in with me, into my apartment above the shop. And that would mean him being there. All the time.

  Unlike some ex-boyfriends I could mention, Sailor wasn’t thrown by my witchy ways, but what if he got tired of distinguishing my bags of cemetery dirt from garden soil, or the raw goat milk for new moon ceremonies from the milk for the cereal? Or what if the sometimes noxious smoke from my brewing got on his nerves? I wasn’t about to hold back on my brewing and spellcasting, so if he dared to imply—

  “So, did our trip to the dog park tell us anything?” asked Maya, interrupting my flight of fancy and bringing me back to the here and now.

  At the sound of her voice, I tried to focus my mind on the matter at hand. Sailor and I were nowhere near ready to move in togeth
er, no matter the locale. I pushed it from my mind and turned my thoughts to Autumn and Scarlet, the Rodchester House of Spirits, and an allegedly cursed trousseau.

  “I don’t know. The idea that the trousseau might be cursed is new. Sailor and I both felt there was something off about those items, but as to whether there’s an actual curse behind all this, that’s something else altogether.”

  I unlocked the car, we climbed in, and I started driving across town.

  “I’d like to look up this story about the shoeshine boy and the curse,” I continued. “Eleanor mentioned it was pretty well-known.”

  “And by that you mean you’d like me to look up this story about the shoeshine boy and the curse?”

  “I think you’re becoming a mind reader yourself. You sure you’re not psychic?” I teased. “Unfortunately, as you know, Aunt Cora’s Closet is still closed, pending the forensic team’s investigation, so we can’t even use the computer.”

  “Bronwyn told me they’d made a huge mess. What a drag.”

  “This won’t be the first time we’ve had to put the shop back together.”

  “That was sort of my point.”

  “Sorry. I know. We’re a problem store. And I’m probably a problem boss. Want me to take you to your apartment, or back to the loft? Or somewhere else?”

  “I take it Loretta’s still hanging out with me?”

  “If you don’t mind, at least until we can settle this.”

  “Then let’s go back to my folks’ house. That way she has a yard so she can go outside. And I can use their computer and look up this alleged curse for you.”

  I headed south toward the Bayview. On the way, we stopped for take-out Thai food for lunch, to make up for the dinner we’d missed the evening we found Autumn. The van soon filled with the delectable scents of lemongrass and curry, making my mouth water.

  As we drove, Maya noticed the show catalog I had picked up from the Legion of Honor. “Cool, did you check out this Vintage Victoriana show? I keep seeing the posters but haven’t made it over yet.”