Whiskey and Water

by Nina Wright

  Almost every time I held little Leah or Leo, I thought about how their grandfather and namesake, my late husband, would have adored them. He’d died before finding out Avery was pregnant. No question, Leo would have been a fabulous grandpa. That explained why I felt I should do what I could to help the babies—even though I couldn’t stand their mom.

  So I was frankly relieved when Chester asked if he could spend the night. Between the twins and the two canines, I needed all the help I could get—even if Chester came with an additional dog, Prince Harry. By the time I heard Avery return in her usual huff, the twins were snug in their cribs, Chester had bedded down with the hounds, and I was hiding in my room.

  Chester didn’t have a parent or guardian to go home to, anyhow. Cassina had left the country, and Rupert’s current whereabouts were unknown. A few months earlier, Chester had discovered a bizarre triangle of estranged maternal grandparents. But they weren’t as convenient as I was. One was incarcerated, another had just been paroled, and the third lived in Iowa.

  Fortunately, the ex-con grandfather was now a good guy. He worked as a part-time handyman for Mattimoe Realty. Still, I lived close to the Castle, and I needed Chester as much as Chester needed me. I had hired him shortly after Leo died to be Abra’s official keeper. Even though Deely now handled that, I continued to rely on Chester for back-up. In his own way, he was a handyman, too.

  The next morning I slipped out of the house before anybody else woke up. I had a real estate empire to run. Ahead of me loomed twelve hours with business issues only—no Avery, no babies, and no dogs.

  As usual, my star real estate agent, Odette Mutombo, was already in her cubicle and on the phone making deals. Originally from Zimbabwe, Odette spoke a mellifluous version of English that rendered most prospects unable to say anything but yes. After concluding her pre-breakfast business, Odette rapped on my open door. She was holding a shopping bag.

  “I bought something for you to give Avery,” she crooned. Her skillfully marcelled waves gleamed under my office lights. Even at this ungodly hour, her make-up was flawless. I never saw Odette re-apply her crimson lipstick, yet it always looked fresh.

  “I’m already giving Avery more than any sane person would,” I replied.

  “Exactly why you should give her this. It’s the gift that keeps on giving and especially satisfies the giver.”

  “What is it? A whoopee cushion? A headache? A venereal disease?”

  Odette handed me the shiny bag. I pulled out its tissue-wrapped contents. “A . . . guest towel?”

  “A personalized guest towel.”

  The towel bore this inscription, stitched in delicate script on fine white linen: “Do not mistake endurance for hospitality.”

  “That might be too subtle for Avery,” I said.

  “And too bold for you. That’s why I attached this reminder.”

  Odette had pinned instructions to the towel: Hang in Avery’s bathroom. Immediately!

  “If you can’t find the balls to throw her out, at least make sure she knows she’s unwelcome,” Odette declared. “Last I checked, you were certified to run a realty, not a daycare center for kids and canines.”

  My unfortunate sideline wasn’t limited to daycare, but that didn’t seem a point worth making. I changed the subject.

  “This morning I’m going to inspect the new North Side property. If the renovations are finished, I should be able to rent it immediately. Two spacious units, and the timing is perfect. We have a long waiting list for rentals in that price range.”

  Odette nodded with complete indifference. The North Side of Magnet Springs was a low-rent neighborhood she would never willingly set foot in. I, however, believed in diversified holdings. Following in the footsteps of my late husband-slash- business partner, I made sure Mattimoe Realty did more than broker high-end sales. We also owned and/or managed rental properties for virtually all income brackets. In my humble opinion, the North Side was on its way up. And in the meantime, it was still a place to make a buck.

  “Speaking of rentals, I’ve found someone to sublet Nash Grant’s house,” Odette said, referring to the rental property suddenly abandoned by Avery’s ex. “The new tenant will assume the full rent starting this month. Most of Magnet Springs thinks you’ll be thrilled to have Jeb back in town.”

  I said, “Since when can my ex-husband afford that kind of rent?”

  Jeb Halloran was an itinerant musician long on charm and short on cash. Whenever he passed through Magnet Springs, he stayed for free with one of his many cousins. But not before he tried to spend the night with me.

  “Since he landed an open-ended contract playing five nights a week at the Holiday Inn,” Odette replied. “And received a handsome check for signing with a new recording label.”

  “What’s he singing these days?” I asked without curiosity. “Country? Celtic? Canine?”

  I meant the last option as a joke; Deely and our veterinarian Dr. David had recently discovered that Jeb’s voice calmed cats and dogs. My ex was a gypsy—forever shifting musical styles and performance venues in search of an audience.

  Odette said, “He’s playing Oldies but Goodies at the Holiday Inn and promoting his new Animal Lullabies CD.”

  “Fleggers came through with the cash?”

  I was stunned. Last I’d heard, Deely and Dr. David were brainstorming a plot to sell Jeb’s tunes to affluent owners of hyperactive pets. Except, according to Fleggers, there are no “pets”—just four-legged “people equivalents” who lack conventional credit.

  “Fleggers has deep pockets,” Odette said. “And a formidable marketing plan. Deely and Dr. David are in Amsterdam negotiating European sales for Jeb’s CDs.”

  “I thought they were in Amsterdam for a Fleggers convention.”

  “Wake up, Whiskey. Deal-making is the real business of Fleggers,” Odette said. “It’s everybody’s real business. Your nanny learned to negotiate in the Coast Guard.”

  “She learned damage control in the Coast Guard,” I argued. “That’s why I hired her to work at my house.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, I was making the short drive to the new North Side duplex. As usual, I had put property manager Luís Regalo in charge of renovations, which in this case included extensive remodeling of bathrooms and kitchens in addition to painting and replacing flooring throughout both units. Since Luís had assigned Roy Vickers—my best recent hire and Chester’s newly discovered ex-con grandfather—to finish the job, I expected to find Roy on site.

  And I did. Roy stood in the repaved driveway talking to my new tenant from the tiny house next door. Twyla Rendel was a mousy young woman whose best feature was the bright smile she rarely flashed. About five-foot-six with lank dishwater-blonde hair, hazel eyes, and an anemic complexion, Twyla tended to slouch whether standing, sitting or tending her two small kids.

  The previous week, she and her children had moved into the nine-hundred-square-foot yellow clapboard cottage. Newly hired as cashier at Food Duck, our local grocery, Twyla couldn’t offer local references or much of a work or credit history. Ordinarily I might have turned down her application. But I felt hopeful about Twyla. She’d come from Flint, Michigan—on the other side of the state—where she’d worked a series of short-term unskilled jobs since graduating from high school. Her most recent gig had been as receptionist for a dentist who’d inconveniently dropped dead while extracting a wisdom tooth. That had left Twyla jobless in an economically depressed town. She claimed she’d decided to move to Magnet Springs after spotting an article about our charming burg in a travel magazine that the dentist kept in his waiting room.

  “It sounded like a nice place to raise kids,” she told me.

  Nice and expensive, I could have told her. Ours was a tourist town. Great views, fabulous restaurants, quaint shops, and stellar real estate. Lots of pricey services available, too, but not many career opportunities for someone with only a high school diploma. During our brief interview, Twyla volunteered
that she had no husband and no family beyond her two- year-old son and one-year-old daughter.

  “That’s a lot of responsibility,” I commented. Not that I wanted to hear her sad story, but I was intrigued by her stony determination to single-handedly give her kids a better life. I recalled my mother’s accounts of our Irish immigrant ancestors who moved to America with only the clothes on their backs. At least they had family.

  Twyla shrugged and stared at her feet. “I’ll figure it out,” she said. “I always find a way to get by.”

  Then her eyes met mine, and she flashed a quick, shy smile that touched my business-hardened heart. She was emotionally damaged, no doubt about it. But I sensed a solidness in her that I attributed, with respect, to the School of Hard Knocks.

  Also, I couldn’t help but compare Twyla and Avery. They were both single moms, close in age, with two tiny kids. Unlike Avery, Twyla didn’t have a trust fund. Or a stepmother with survivor guilt and a couple extra bedrooms.

  In short, I found myself rooting for Twyla. Starting over is never easy. Maybe she had more reasons than a dead dentist and a magazine article for moving to Magnet Springs. Reasons like a surly ex or a string of sad memories in Flint. Twyla didn’t have to confide in me. In fact, I preferred to know nothing about my tenants’ private lives. They were part of my business, not my circle of friends. As long as they honored their leases, I liked them just fine. But this one—. This one got to me. Just a little.

  Now, as I pulled into the recently redone driveway that served both my new duplex and the house Twyla rented, the young mother’s face turned ashen.

  I knew why. The last time she’d seen me, I had Abra at my side. And Abra had ripped a shiny plastic bangle right off Twyla’s wrist. She’d run away with it, too. My dog left no teeth marks, but she did rattle nerves. She was an incorrigible thief. If it glistened or moved, Abra had to have it. If it glistened and moved, you’d never see it again.

  “I left Abra home.” I called out in lieu of hello.

  “Thank you,” said Twyla, smiling weakly. “It’s not that I don’t like your dog. It’s just that she scares the crap out of me.”

  “Abra scares the crap out of me, too,” I said cheerfully. “How’s it going here, Roy?”

  At age seventy, Mattimoe Realty’s handyman didn’t look a day over fifty-five. And we’re talking a very fit fifty-five. Roy Vickers was well over six feet tall with military bearing and bulging muscles. His hairline, like his waistline, could have belonged to a much younger man. Only the network of deep lines and broken veins around his bright blue eyes betrayed Roy’s history as our town drunk. People rarely mentioned that history, least of all the chapter that had earned him nine years in the slammer. In an alcoholic rage, Roy once stabbed a man. Fortunately, that man had survived . . . to marry me and teach me about real estate. Leo forgave Roy, and so did I.

  “I’m almost finished here, Whiskey.” Roy detailed his remaining tasks, which involved removing tools and other equipment and then sweeping up.

  “So we’ll be move-in ready by next week?” I asked.

  “By the weekend.“

  That’s why I liked working with Roy. Oh, I’d had qualms when I hired him. But Noonan Starr had built an awesome, guilt-inducing case for helping Roy find “karmic balance.” She’d insisted that to rebuild his life after jail, Roy needed to do good works where he’d once done damage. Leo would have agreed. So I’d found a spot for Roy on my payroll, and I was glad that I had.

  Twyla excused herself to go check on her kids in the house. As soon as she left, Roy whispered, “Something’s not right with that gal.”

  “Did she say so?” I asked.

  “Not straight out, but the Seven Suns of Solace tells me so.”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The Seven Suns of Solace bugged the hell out of me. Next to Avery and Abra—and a few other annoying locals—it was one of the major downsides of living in Magnet Springs. A fuzzy New Age philosophy, the Seven Suns of Solace was embraced by most of my hometown. Roy had studied it in prison and gave it credit for saving his mind. Noonan practiced it along with her massage therapy and gave it credit for saving her business.

  Over the past year, she had built a lucrative practice as a New Age tele-counselor, advising former tourists by phone how to stay in touch with their “higher selves” after their vacations ended. Noonan also counseled dozens of locals face to face. That portion of her clientele included our acting mayor and purveyor of fine coffee, Peg Goh, and my acting-out stepdaughter and squatter, Avery. In terms of results, I could only observe that Peg remained as cheery as ever, while Avery was her usual sulky self. Still, there was no question that Roy had come out of prison a reformed man, so the Seven Suns of Solace must have shone on him.

  “What’s up with Twyla?” I asked Roy. “Besides her natural fear of Abra?”

  The tall man frowned thoughtfully. “I think she’s harboring deep anxieties that have nothing to do with your dog. Something’s blocking her karmic flow.”

  That’s the kind of statement you’re likely to hear in Magnet Springs. One of the oddities of our small town is that many residents lay claim to “insights.” A touch of clairvoyance or other unexplained talents. Odette, for example, can sometimes predict what prospects look like on the basis of their telephone voices. Noonan’s wide-ranging psychic talents are downright alarming. And then there’s our police chief, who, when riled, can channel the town’s magnetic fields.

  I smiled at Roy, one of the few men in Magnet Springs I literally had to look up to.

  “Well, let’s hope Twyla’s just having a bad day.” More important, I thought, let’s hope she keeps her problems to herself. A quiet, compliant tenant was my favorite kind of tenant. So far, Twyla fit that bill.

  Roy and I walked through both units of the new duplex, reviewing my checklist. He was right. Everything that needed doing was done, save the final clean-up. When I headed back out to my car, Twyla’s ten-year-old Ford Taurus was gone. And the unofficial neighborhood guardian was waving at me from across the street. Correction: she was waving me over to her side. Urgently.

  Sixty-six-year-old Yolanda Brewster was the self-appointed Boss of the North Side. “Boss Bitch” according to some of her neighbors, but I knew she meant well. During the warm months, she and her portable TV spent most days and evenings on her front porch. During the rest of the year, she parked her gleaming wheelchair in the living room by the picture window. Neighborhood dramas interested her far more than her favorite soap operas and talk shows. As a North Side property owner and Yolanda’s landlord, I appreciated her vigilance. She did more to keep crime off the streets than our local cops did. But then our local cops consisted of one full-time chief, one full-time canine, and one part-time officer who wanted to be an art historian.

  “Where’s that big dog o’ yours?” Yolanda called out as I crossed the street toward her.

  “Home . . . I hope.”

  Yolanda knew only too well my chronic inability to keep Abra in check. Last spring she had helped me and the police locate my missing canine after Abra committed a felony in plain sight of two hundred people.

  “How are you, Mrs. Brewster? Any chance I can get a glass of your famous iced tea?”

  “I’m good, I’m good, Miz Mattimoe,” she replied. “Of course you can get you some tea. I brewed a fresh batch cuz I knowed you be coming. I seen Roy carrying paint cans outta that house this morning. That mean you be showing up soon. Come on in.”

  I held open the front door for Yolanda—not that she needed me to—and then followed her wheelchair through the house to her spotless kitchen. None of my tenants kept a cleaner house than Yolanda. And none of my other tenants was wheelchair-bound. I didn’t know how she managed. Her sweet iced tea was another mystery. Flavored with mint, honey, and ginger, it was the best version of that beverage I’d ever tasted. I sipped it gratefully, waiting for Yolanda to say what was on her mind. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “I seen you talki
ng to the Rendel girl,” Yolanda began. “You know what’s up over there?”

  I shook my head. Although the tea felt good going down, my stomach tightened. Roy had gotten weird vibes from Twyla, and now Yolanda had news to share.

  “Let me ask you this, Miz Mattimoe: How many kids you think she got?”

  I held up two fingers. In response, Yolanda held up five.

  “No way,” I said. “I met the kids.”

  Yolanda continued to display five fingers. “Best I can tell from here, she got three boys and two girls. Real close in age.”

  I understood Yolanda’s concern. And I wasn’t happy, either. That house was zoned for very limited occupancy. Although technically it had two bedrooms, the second one was the size of a modest walk-in closet. Where could Twyla put five kids?

  I opted for denial. “She can’t have five kids,” I said. “She’s only twenty-three.”

  If I’d paused to think, I would have seen my own stupidity. Yolanda kindly pointed it out. She herself had had five babies before she reached that age, giving birth for the first time when she was sixteen.

  “Here’s my worry,” Yolanda said. “I don’t see how that girl can take care of those babies. She got no family to help. I hear ‘em crying all day and all night.”

  Chapter Four

  All this talk about babies reminded me of the two at my house. I thanked Yolanda for her concern and returned to my car to check my cell phone. It was down to one battery bar. In last night’s confusion, I’d failed to plug it in. And in my rush to flee home this morning, I’d forgotten my charger-cable.

  En route to the office, I played back my voice mail, which contained a higher-than-usual number of Vestige-based messages. Mostly from Chester. With mostly helpful reminders about replenishing my supplies of human and canine essentials.

  Failing to keep fridge and pantry stocked ranked high on my list of notorious shortcomings. Another reason I needed Deely Smarr. She was a whiz at making the house seem to run itself. An illusion, I realized, but one that I happily paid her well to sustain. Deely was more of a personal assistant-slash-housekeeper than nanny, and I compensated her accordingly.