Evil Genius
Page 20
Any memory of childhood incidents dissipated as soon as the door opened and the visitor entered—Magda.
Graham must have released the lock electronically. She walked in alone, as if she belonged here. Wearing her blond hair up in a sophisticated French twist, she entered wearing form-fitting jeans and a casual open-necked polo shirt with the collar turned up. I figured the shirt was knitted with genuine gold and the black jeans had been tailored expressly to fit. The colorfully painted gold slides on her feet probably cost a few hundred all by themselves. My bet was that she wore over half a grand to appear casual. Her lovers tend to be generous.
She tugged a wheeled Vuitton overnight case over the threshold, but I knew somewhere there were a dozen matching bags waiting to be delivered if she decided to stay. My heart sank to my unpolished toes.
“My old room?” she called gaily, evidently conversing with the intercom she must have known was there.
“Perhaps your daughter should decide that,” Graham’s mechanical voice said with the dryness that meant he saw me.
Shit. I hope I haunted his dreams the way he haunted my life. He knew Magda and knew she was my mother?
Stepping from the shadows, I started down the stairs. “I have no idea which is your old room.” I tried to sound welcoming, but it was hard. We hadn’t spoken for years. I’ve always loved my mother, but in a distant, bewildered sort of way.
“Anastasia, dearest! It’s so good to see you again.” She approached the stairs in a cloud of Opium perfume. “Thank you for looking after EG until I could get here. Honestly, she’s even worse than you were at that age.”
No doubt. EG had a few more IQ points.
She spoke to me as if I were still a child, and we’d seen each other just yesterday. She’s my mother. She had that right. But counseling had taught me that I didn’t have to let her control my image of myself.
Reminding myself that I was not her live-in help any longer, I didn’t stop at the bottom of the stairs but started down the hallway to grandfather’s remodeled parlor. “The guest room is this way. You’ll appreciate the whirlpool after your trip.”
No hugs, no kisses. As earlier noted, we weren’t a touchy-feely family. If I was to believe her fairy tales, my grandmother must have died when Magda was quite young. Perhaps a lack of love and affection had made her what she is today. And the rest of us what we are. Magda didn’t dispense affection without an audience.
“In the parlor?” she protested, following me. “Are all the other rooms taken?”
“Musty,” I said gruffly. “We weren’t expecting company.”
I didn’t expect her to explain her arrival, but I suppose I was an eternal optimist and waited for an explanation anyway. Trying to figure out Magda had been my goal throughout childhood, and the main reason I learned to research. When no explanation was forthcoming, I didn’t bother clarifying that we were trespassing on Graham’s limited goodwill. I could blame lack of communication for our family dysfunction, but it was only a symptom of the real problem—we were all as competitive as hell and liked to always be one up on each other. I tried not do that to the kids, but with Magda, it’s an irresistible challenge.
“I must say, I’m amazed that Amadeus is living here. Whatever possessed him to move into D.C. ? I thought him more the Alexandria type.” She swept into the parlor cum bedroom and glanced around with approval.
I, on the other hand, stood there like a dork in shock. See? See how she always pulls the rabbit out of the hat?
“You know Graham?” I hated asking but couldn’t help myself.
Her long-lashed cat eyes narrowed. “Of course. Didn’t he tell you?”
I didn’t want to hear about it if Graham was another of Magda’s lovers. That would be a crushing blow I didn’t want to take. I shrugged, leaned against the door jamb, and tried to look disinterested. “We don’t talk much.”
“You mean, he doesn’t talk much. Never did. Strange, even as a child, obsessed with electronic devices. Well, no matter. I’m here now. We can catch up on old times. Is Nicholas still here? We can have a lovely family breakfast together.”
Once upon a time my heart would have swelled with joy at the thought of our fairy tale princess mother condescending to arise early enough to breakfast with us like normal mothers did. But she kept midnight hours and needed her beauty sleep. I no longer begrudged Magda her lifestyle, but I no longer believed every word she said either.
“EG has to be at school by eight. We eat at seven. I’ll leave you to get your rest so we can talk in the morning then. Good-night.” I turned around to walk out.
“Ana,” she called quietly before I could escape.
I turned, and just for a very brief moment, I saw her without the shield of glamor. She wasn’t fifty yet. She still had the fine skin of a child. The striking gold of her hair complemented the cream of her complexion. Fine lines at her eyes said she hadn’t resorted to plastic surgery. She still had a figure to die for, even after all the kids she’d carried. But for that very brief moment, the corners of her mouth sagged, and she looked like a lonely woman.
So I waited to hear what she had to say.
At my hesitation, she smiled, the glamor returned, and she was the Magda I remembered. “You look stunning in that outfit. Your grandfather would be very proud of you.”
“My grandfather died two months ago. None of us knew to attend his funeral. I don’t think he would be proud at all.”
She stiffened and tucked a long spiral of blond hair back into its pin while looking in the mirror rather than at me. “My father liked being judge and jury and lord of all he surveyed. He was a good man, and his intentions were of the best, but he had difficulty accepting that the opinions of others mattered or that the ends don’t justify the means.”
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Sounded to me as if Magda was a chip off the old block. But I obediently held my sharp tongue and waited for her to continue.
“I think, towards the end,” she added, “he may have finally come to understand he might be wrong, but it was too late.”
I waited, hoping for explanations. Again. Silly of me. “Too late for what?” I asked.
Magda smiled. “Never mind. This house brings back memories, and I’m in danger of sounding maudlin. Good-night, dear.”
She’d upstaged me again. If Grandfather was anything like Magda, I could understand why the two of them couldn’t live in the same house. They’d have to live separate lives just to keep from killing each other—just as I’d had to move out to keep from strangling my mother. How did one fight environment and heredity to change the way a family interacts?
I returned upstairs, half expecting Graham to lodge a protest the instant I opened my door. Instead, the intercom remained blessedly silent. Or maybe not so blessedly. I could have used a little human contact right now. But I didn’t want to wake EG or Nick, and Graham wasn’t really human now, was he?
Maybe that was the best way for my family to get along—by mechanical means. A virtual family. I’d ask my therapist about that the next time I hired one.
~
I saw no reason to compete with Magda on any level. Thursday morning, I wore my usual black cotton capris and T-shirt, tugged my hair into a single thick braid, and strode down to breakfast doing my best to feel as if I was in control of my little part of the planet. I am, after all, the best virtual assistant in the world, and I could leave on my own anytime I liked.
The trouble was that I had begun to enjoy having Nick and EG to talk to—and even Graham, however frustrating he might be. I could return to my basement mole hole, but I wasn’t certain that I wanted to anymore.
That was too frightening to think about, so I didn’t. That’s how one survives, not stressing over things one can’t control.
Evidently forewarned by Graham, Mallard had set an extra place at the breakfast table. He even hovered anxiously in the doorway, looking up the instant I entered the room. If he was disappointed that it was on
ly me, I couldn’t tell from his wooden expression. He held out my chair for me as he never did before and whipped out a linen napkin to lay over my knees.
“He’s been doing that ever since we came down,” Nick said, reaching for the jam. “I think he’s sailed around the bend.”
EG gave him a lofty look. “Magda arrived last night.”
Nick almost choked on his toast. I stirred my tea and let him choke. Magda could change the atmosphere of an entire palace simply by her presence. Mallard was already showing the effect, and one will note, our mother had not yet put in an appearance.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I said for EG’s benefit. “If you want to stay with me, you can, as long as you understand that I expect you to go to school. Your choice.”
She nodded and tried to look blasé, but I liked to think she relaxed a little.
“I’ll escort her to school,” Nick offered. “It’s on my way to work anyway.”
“Then I can wait for her after school,” I agreed.
“My father wouldn’t hurt me,” EG said defensively, knowing what we were talking about. “He just didn’t know who I was. He was protecting Elsie. That’s what fathers do.”
I tried not to roll my eyes too obviously. “Fathers are men, and men are capable of anything. Remember that, and you’ll be fine.”
“And by anything, I assume you mean world peace as well as war.” Magda swept into the room in a cloud of Opium shower soap and lotion. She wouldn’t be so crass as to wear perfume in the morning.
Nicholas rose as he’d been taught to do at an early age. Always more comfortable with men, Magda pecked him on the jaw. “Nicholas, dearest, why aren’t you in Hollywood by now?”
She wasn’t wearing casual this morning. She was dressed to thrill in a red silk dress that clung to every voluptuous inch of her figure before flaring into a flirty ruffled hem. A bolero jacket embroidered in small black beads made a poor attempt to hide her cleavage. Untouched by gray, her shiny blonde hair was stacked in an elaborate coiffure I thought only possible with a master stylist.
Without waiting for Nick’s reply to her flattery, she turned to smile at Mallard, who stood at stiff attention behind the chair he held out for her. “Mallard, you haven’t changed a bit!”
He reddened, but I caught the shadow of a smile on his lips. I wanted to sulk because he never smiled at me, but then, I hadn’t given him reason to do so. Therapists had told me that my desire not to compete with my mother came from fear of failure. They’re probably right.
“Elizabeth, how lovely you look, dear!” She flashed a ruby red smile at EG who merely sent her a glower.
Dear EG, we’re alike in so many ways. “She chose the clothes herself,” I said, easing the tension with EG’s non-answer. “She has your flair for fashion. And Nick’s,” I added at his cough. “The school we’ve found seems to be an excellent one.” Line drawn, battlefield readied.
Magda smiled prettily at Mallard as he leaned over her shoulder to pour her tea. From the advantage of distance and experience, I could tell she was merely using the delay as a means of rallying her forces. I had hoped to have our millions before she showed up so I’d be in a position strong enough to fight for EG.
“D.C. is such a dreary place,” Magda said with a jaded air, waving her rings in the sunlight from the leaded glass window. “I cannot imagine why anyone would wish to live here when there are so many more suitable climes. The humidity alone is enough to make one gasp.” Cannons in place. Fire one.
“D.C. has some of the best educational facilities in the world,” I asserted. Return fire. “The museums alone provide a lifetime of learning. Life is not just about the best sunny beach in spring.”
“Life is about living, dear. Education is pleasant if it helps one to live well, but mostly it clutters the mind with irrelevant information that gets in the way of actually doing anything.”
Magda truly believes this with all her heart and soul. She was not being facetious or argumentative. We’d had this discussion many times over the years so there was no point in taking it further.
“Nevertheless, the law in this country requires that a child have an education. Until she does, she’s not in a position to decide whether or not it is beneficial. EG’s mind is large enough to encompass a great deal of information before it becomes cluttered.”
It was as if ten years had dropped away, and we were right back where we once were, arguing over my desire to go to college. Nick and EG faded into the woodwork. This wasn’t their argument and never had been.
Nick’s father had paid for his schooling. I assumed any money from EG’s father paid for more education than I’d received. My father was dead, and we’d lived out of suitcases when I was little. My irregular primary education hadn’t been strong enough to produce scholarships. Or even a formal high school degree. I’d taken the GED when I’d returned to the States.
“Daddy’s in trouble.” EG dropped that tidbit like a bombshell to smash the pattern of our argument to smithereens. She hadn’t been around ten years ago to do that.
Magda smiled brightly and reached across the table to pat EG’s hand. “He’ll be just fine, dear. He has a raft of lawyers who will prove he’s innocent. There isn’t a thing you can do to help him. You can come home with me where you don’t have to listen to all the silliness.”
“No.” EG shoved back her chair and stalked out of the dining room, her long hair swaying across her Ralph Lauren polo.
I had no idea if this was the usual pattern between EG and Magda, but our mother showed no sign that the abrupt departure disturbed her. She merely slid a sliver of jam over her toast.
“Guess I’d better be going, too. Don’t want to be late.” Taking a last quick sip of his coffee, Nick pushed away from the table. “Good to see you again, Mother. Hope you’re staying for a while. See you later.”
Nick knew how to say all the polite meaningless phrases that smoothed over the fact that chances were very good Magda would be gone by evening. Etiquette and small talk wove a silken cocoon to conceal the emptiness of our conversation. Growing up fatherless, we all wanted more of Magda than she was capable of giving. We each dealt with it in our own ways.
I dealt with it by escaping, if only to an apple tree in the backyard. Or more likely, the camel’s shed. But I’d established a beachhead in this house. This was my home, and I didn’t intend to leave unless caught in something fatal like a riptide. I sipped my tea and waited.
Magda inclined her head in acknowledgement of my refusal to escape like the others. “It’s time I told you why I left D.C. , dear.”
I almost spluttered tea out my nose.
Chapter Eighteen
Magda and Sean talk; Ana learns who Oracle is and falls in love with a dangerous car.
Mallard had disappeared into the recesses of the kitchen after greeting Magda, but he suddenly appeared in the doorway now. Had Graham warned him of what she was about to say? I was suspicious of everyone, including my mother, but I’d still like to hear her excuse for abandoning Maximillian and the home and security he had offered us.
“Mallard, go away, please. This is private.” She didn’t even have to turn to know he was behind her. She winked at me. “This house has always had ears.”
“Wireless communication has made it more so. Perhaps you would prefer to wait until we go elsewhere?” I asked politely, although I silently gnashed my teeth in frustration.
“Oh, Graham knows everything. Daddy always wanted a son, and events provided him with one. Isn’t that so, Amadeus?”
The candelabra didn’t reply.
My head was already spinning in shock, and she hadn’t even begun. Graham had the grandfather who should have been mine? “Graham knew Max?” I asked, as if my temper hadn’t reached 212 Farenheit and my brain wasn’t flashing lights like a berserk computer.
“Of course, dear. My father liked playing puppetmeister. He mentored any number of protégés who have had their hands in lots of stick
y little plots.” Still no comment from the candelabra. “I assume Max kept Graham too busy to kill himself after his wife died, but you’d best ask Graham that, dear.”
“But they knew each other before 9/11?” I asked, proud of my nonchalance.
Hands wrapped around the fragile teacup, Magda tilted it back and forth as if trying to read the tea leaves. “Long before. Graham may have been Max’s last protégé. Your father was possibly his first. Brody was a bit of a firebrand, though.”
From my understanding of my father, he was a lot more than a firebrand. He was a raging, fiery orator with a voice and way with words that could sway multitudes. The Irish government had thought to neutralize his message by sending him here, sensibly not creating a martyr by killing him.
I believe one source I’d read said he succeeded in raising more money for the IRA in one year than the renegades had seen in all their history. A brilliant man, my father, but he lacked common sense.
“Your father was assassinated. Did you know that?”
“I assumed as much,” I acknowledged, wishing for something stronger than darjeeling to get me through this. Where was she heading with this?
“Max took Brody under his wing when he first arrived here. I was about eighteen. At the time, Max had plans for me to marry an Ivy League man and rule over Washington, preferably as First Lady. If he’d wanted me to be president, things might have turned out differently.”
I had to smile into my teacup at that. That was pure Magda and the reason I loved her despite all evidence otherwise. She was a strong-minded woman who never let anyone or anything put her down. That made for tempestuous relationships, but she could handle them.
I was the one who couldn’t. “You would never have been able to compromise enough to pull a political party together behind your campaign.”
She shrugged. “One doesn’t understand that at eighteen. I only knew I hated Vassar, had no desire to wear gray suits, and that Brody Devlin was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. The more Daddy disparaged him as husband material, the more I defended him. When you came along, I married him. Daddy almost killed us both.”