All About Evie (ARC)

by Cathy Lamb

  The kids were helicoptered out and at a hospital within the hour. Two of them were suffering from hypothermia. The one who had fallen had broken both legs. They probably would have died that night had they not been rescued. All three stayed in the hospital for days but would be as good as new soon.

  Betsy was not as good as new. As soon as Aurelia and the lieutenant left, her father tore her pants down, leaned her over his lap, and hit her with his belt while her mother cowered.

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  Another time, when she was fifteen, Betsy pounded a rock into Mr. Zeiber’s sliding glass door until it shattered, and she crawled in only a minute after he had a heart attack in the kitchen. In her premonition she had seen him struggling for air, arching his back, clutching his chest. She had taken particular note of his clothes, as she had learned to do: gray sweater with red trim on the cuffs, blue jeans with a hole on the left knee, black tennis shoes.

  She called for an ambulance as Mr. Zeiber, only forty-five years old, gasped for breath on the floor, then she held his hand.

  Mr. Zeiber lived. Her parents were alerted to where their daughter was only when the police brought her home. The police explained that Betsy had told them that she had “heard” Mr.

  Zeiber’s cries for help and that’s why she broke the sliding glass door. Mr. Zeiber did not remember screaming, but he figured that he had and knew that Betsy had saved his life.

  “Your daughter is a hero,” the police said.

  When the police left, Betsy’s enraged father tossed her in the basement closet with the Bible, where she crumpled to the floor.

  He did not let her out for twelve hours, though she had saved a life. He gave her a can to pee in.

  “Pray that God delivers you from the evil spirits within you.

  No one but God, our holy father, sees the future, except, perhaps, the devil, so you will stay here until the devil leaves you.

  And never leave the house without our permission again, Betsy!

  You are a cursed girl and I will save you from yourself!” To make her especially miserable, she was given only two pieces of bread and water, so her body shook and she became dizzy, as usual.

  The men in the church performed an exorcism on Betsy at her father’s request after that one. They told her to get naked on a table. She refused. She fought, she hit, she tried to run, she screamed. Finally they agreed she didn’t have to get naked. Clearly two of the more creepy men were disappointed. When she was on the table Betsy sang songs by the Beatles until her dad put his

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  hand over her mouth. She almost passed out from not being able to breathe. “Don’t kill her, Hansen,” one of the men said.

  “Let me examine her and I’ll see if I can get the demons out.”

  Betsy never forgot that “examination.” Her father stood by and watched, the men around her breathing heavily, her father the heaviest of all.

  From the time she was young, though, she knew that sometimes she should say something, do something, to prevent something tragic from happening in the future, and sometimes she shouldn’t.

  She knew that Mr. Ralph, another neighbor, was going to die soon. He was going to fall out of his wheelchair and drown in his pool. But he was ninety-four years old and he had already told Betsy that he didn’t want to live anymore. He had lost his wife, his brothers and sisters, and his best friend. He was extremely sick and coughed all the time. She didn’t know if he rolled himself in or if it was an accident, but she did nothing to prevent it.

  And she knew that her father was going to chop wood in the backyard and get distracted by Miss Jane in a bathing suit next door and bring the ax straight into his leg. The leg would gush blood and he would be in the hospital for a couple of weeks because of a bad infection that would almost kill him.

  She didn’t tell him what was going to happen, and she did nothing to prevent it. Those two weeks with her mother were the best ever.

  No, she let the ax slide straight into her father’s leg, and when he called out in agony, she pretended not to hear.

  Later, he beat her for that, too.

  It was bad enough to live in a household of control, reeking with religious fanaticism, and a fundamentalism that actively discouraged rational thought, facts, opinions, freedom, or joy, but it was worse knowing that your own mother, the person who should protect you above all else, would never stand up for you, Betsy thought. Her mother was weak, voiceless. She would

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  not protect her daughter from her husband, no matter what happened to her.

  And yet Betsy’s mother, with black hair and golden eyes like Betsy’s, had premonitions, too. She told Betsy she did. Her mother had, too, and her grandmother and great-grandmother.

  They were all Irish. “The second sight,” she said. “We have it.”

  Yes, they had it. The difference was that Betsy tried to help others, while Mary couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help anyone, even her own daughter. Hansen knew—Mary had told him before they married—and he had been kind while they were chastely dating, until their wedding night. Then he had thundered at her for her wickedness, and things had gone downhill from there.

  If Betsy had to choose, it was her mother’s inaction that hurt her more than her father’s belt, whipping through the air until it landed and split open her back.

  Betsy thought she might well lose her mind in jail.

  But as time went on, she thought that might be preferable to staying sane.

  C h a p t e r 1 2

  “Serafina, with her shiny, multicolored rainbow tail, liked to help people.”

  “Like me, right?”

  “Like you. One day, her brothers got into trouble with an evil merman who used to be king. He was a horrible king. He wouldn’t allow the mermen and mermaids freedoms, so they had a mighty revolution under the sea and chased him out with golden swords and shields. King Koradome was not allowed in the Mermaid Village anymore. He lived miles away in an old black rock home.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Serafina’s brothers swam over there one day to spy on him.

  They had heard he had magical powers and could turn people into fish and whales into people. It was said he could transform himself into a serpent or a snake.”

  “That’s scary.”

  “The brothers spied on him from behind a line of rocks, but King Koradome knew they were there. He captured all of them in a cage and would not let them go. War was going to be declared between the good mermaids and mermen and King Koradome. Serafina was not supposed to go anywhere near her brothers in the cage, but she did anyhow because she loved

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  them so much. King Koradome, who was sneaky and dangerous, caught her and threw her in a separate cage.”

  “Oh no! Then what happened?”

  “To get out of the cage, and to get her brothers out, Serafina had to promise to give King Koradome something.”

  “What did she promise to give him?”

  C h a p t e r 1 3

  “Let’s talk about the pot you three are growing.”

  I stared at my mother and aunts across my blue sawhorse/

  butcher block kitchen table. I had bought pasta and French bread for us from Giannelli’s in town and lit a bunch of vanilla-scented candles. In the center of the table I had my usual bouquet of roses, this time a mix of burgundy, red, white, yellow, and purple.

  They’d come over in a rush, straight from the floral shop, kisses and hugs and “how-are-you”s, and hung up their hats.

  My mother had chosen a lime-green hat with white flowers for the day, rather demure for her. Aunt Iris was wearing a dark blue hat with tiny whales attached to the brim. Aunt Camellia was wearing a pink hat, tilted over one eye, with a pink net.

  We’d had dinner, then I’d made a pot of mint tea and served pink chiffon cookies.

  They all froze for a moment after my statement. My mother and Aunt Camellia, sitting on the church pe
w, squirmed.

  “More tea?” my mother said, holding my red teapot over my teacup. My teacup was full.

  “A biscuit?” Aunt Camellia asked, holding up the plate of pink chiffon cookies, even though I already had three cookies on my plate. She likes to act British sometimes by calling cookies biscuits.

  “Let’s not be unpleasant,” Aunt Iris said. “Or accusatory. Eat more salad. It helps with digestion and flatulence.”

  “Mom. Aunt Camellia. Aunt Iris.” My white curtains with light

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  yellow roses fluttered, as Sundance leaned against my leg. “You’re growing pot in the greenhouse.”

  “The weather was so gorgeous today, a slight breeze, warm sun, not too warm,” my mother said.

  “The way the sun is glinting off the water tonight looks like sparkles. Sparkles bring out one’s internal goodness, don’t you think?” Aunt Camellia said.

  “Let’s have a conversation about when we all realized that we’re feminists,” Aunt Iris growled.

  “We’re going to talk about this,” I said. Mars jumped up on a stack of books next to a wine barrel. The books fell down. He meowed in irritation, then took a leap onto the old library card catalogue. I sighed.

  “Barnie’s selling two of his pigs,” my mother said.

  “His pigs are delicious,” Aunt Camellia said. “Tender. Soft.”

  “Should we buy the pigs?” my mother asked.

  “Let’s consider the economics,” Aunt Iris said. “I’ll make up a financial spreadsheet. Buying pigs versus buying the pork and bacon at the grocery store.”

  “I’m not going away,” I said. I picked up a pink chiffon cookie despite myself. I’d have one. Or two. Not more than four. Venus jumped on my lap and purred. “This isn’t funny. Pot is illegal, and you have a whole house full of it out there.”

  “No,” my mother said, waving her hand dismissively. “Not a house full. It’s a greenhouse.”

  “A house is a home when it’s filled with love,” Aunt Camellia said. “Who wants to watch a British love story tonight? I do.

  Would you like a biscuit, Evie?”

  “A greenhouse is structurally different from a home,” Aunt Iris said. “There are plumbing and electrical contrasts. The insulation and flooring are at opposite ends of the construction spectrum. Plus, we don’t have that many plants. Let’s not exag-gerate, Evie. Be practical.”

  “But why are you growing pot?” I said. “You don’t smoke pot.”

  “Oh, my, no,” my mother said, but she glanced away. “I’m a lady.”

  “Never,” Aunt Camellia said, but she found a sudden interest

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  in my fluttering rose curtains. “I can’t have pot interfering with my glow.”

  “Pot is an herb,” Aunt Iris said. “Let me tell you about how Indians used herbs.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “This is how you’re going to answer my question? You’re all smoking pot now? In your seventies, you’ve decided to start?”

  My mother sang a few notes of a love song. Aunt Camellia joined in. I knew the song. It was from a romance movie made in the fifties. Aunt Iris spread her arms out as if she were directing them.

  “But there are a number of plants out there,” I said. “You couldn’t possibly smoke all that.”

  “We’re florists,” my mother said. “We like flowers.”

  “Marijuana is not a flower,” I said. “It does not go in your bouquets, but nice try, Mom. Are you selling it? And, if so, to who?”

  “It’s to whom,” Aunt Iris said. “It’s important to be gram-matically correct, Evie.”

  “I like grammar,” Aunt Camellia said. “It helps a person get her innermost thoughts out correctly so she can clearly express her emotions.”

  “Me too,” my mother said. “Especially semicolons. Most people don’t know how to use them.”

  “I do,” Aunt Iris said. “They’re precise, that’s why I like them.”

  “Who is buying pot from you?” I put my hand on Sundance’s head. Surely he was behind me in this?

  My mother sighed, so impatient. “People who are hurting.”

  Aunt Camellia tapped her blue rose teacup with a spoon.

  “People who are ill.”

  “Or dying,” Aunt Iris said. “Isn’t it better for all of us to die stoned than to die sober? It’s a much gentler way to spend your dying time.”

  “I want to be high as a kite when I die,” Aunt Camellia said, her face ecstatic at the thought. “High. As. A. Kite. Flying through the heavens, dipping into the clouds, rolling over rainbows.”

  “Sadie Almeter had cancer. She was in so much pain. We gave

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  her enough joints to smoke all day until she passed,” Aunt Iris said. “She was ninety years old and said she wished she’d discovered it earlier. What did she call it, Camellia?”

  “Magic sticks. She called it magic sticks. Even her grandchildren thanked us for helping to manage her pain. They smoked it with her when their parents weren’t around.”

  My mother beamed. “It was a family moment. The third generation with the first, all stoned and happy. Now, don’t you reprimand me, Evie! The grandchildren were in their forties. They were not children. They had children.”

  “Who else?” Sundance laid his head on my lap. I think he knew this conversation was pointless.

  “Well, you know Pietre, the Frenchman, yummy Frenchman, who has that restaurant on San Lola Island?” My mother fluttered her hands. “We carry it across the ferry in my purse. I usually use the purple-flowered one, which matches my purple plumeria hat with the white feathers.”

  “I love that hat,” Aunt Camellia said. “It’s reflective of your passionate personality, your aura of commitment.”

  “It’s purely medicinal, Evie,” Aunt Iris said. “When Pietre was younger, his stepfather planted an ax in his back. He was also in a motorcycle accident in his twenties and his back aches badly now that he’s older. He didn’t want to take painkillers, he knew he could get addicted, so we bring him his pot.”

  “Then we have lunch at his restaurant. I had French onion soup the last time. With wine. It was scrumptious,” my mother gushed.

  “I had his famous croissants,” Aunt Camellia said. “With butter. Everyone should eat butter.”

  “But we keep our businesses separate,” Aunt Iris said. “At my insistence. We need to be logical. He pays for his marijuana and we pay for our meal, and we share a glass of wine on the back porch and watch the ferries come in.”

  “It’s such a pleasant way to spend the day,” Aunt Camellia said.

  “I feel rejuvenated after eating Pietre.” She coughed. “I mean, eating with Pietre. I do not eat Pietre.”

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  There was a silence. Aunt Iris muffled a laugh. My mother didn’t bother to muffle hers.

  “You’re dating Pietre?” I asked.

  “No, not exactly,” Aunt Camellia said.

  “You’re seeing him.”

  “She sees all of him,” Aunt Iris said.

  “But we’re not committed,” Aunt Camellia said.

  “Not dating then?” I asked.

  “We’re lovers,” Aunt Camellia said. “Sometimes. I’m not dead yet. Why can’t I have a lover?”

  I shook my head. This was a little too much. “You can have all the lovers you want. But back to the pot. Who else are you selling to?”

  “Do you remember Elsa Bryn?” Aunt Camellia said. “She had such severe anxiety she didn’t leave her house for almost two years. Panic attacks, too. She’s a cat hoarder. We brought her a little pot one day. She was a bit resistant at first, so your mother and I smoked it with her, out on her deck. You know she has that mansion overlooking the bay. She can see the whales frolicking about.”

  “She uses her binoculars to study birds. She’s an expert birder,”

  Aunt Iris said. “Encyclopedic knowledge. She used to go on bi
rd-ing expeditions before her anxiety overcame her.”

  “We helped her become herself again. We all lose ourselves sometimes,” my mother said. “It’s like who we used to be runs off into the sunset. Who Elsa was ran off after she experienced trauma. She was attacked in the city and beaten up, her purse stolen. Then they used her credit card to buy ten thousand dollars’

  worth of junk. She hid in her home, alone and lonely. Trapped.

  Can you imagine? Now she’s out and about. Slightly stoned, but functioning.”

  “More mint tea?” Aunt Camellia asked. She tried to fill my already completely full cup, then said, “Whoops!” as it spilled across the table. “Have another biscuit.”

  “Please tell me you’re not selling to kids,” I said. “Please.

  You absolutely can’t.”

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  “Oh, my God!” My mother slammed her hands on the table, and my tea spilled. “Young woman! Do not insult us!”

  Aunt Camellia reached over with her spoon and rapped my knuckles. Hard. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.” She rapped them again, her face angry.

  “Ouch!” Dang it.

  “Evie Lindsay, how dare you?” Aunt Iris said, sitting up straight, brow furrowed. “I am insulted and offended. Surely you know us better than that? We would never sell to anyone under twenty-one.

  In fact, I don’t think we have any customers under thirty. And they all need it. There are emotional and physical reasons for them needing our homegrown marijuana.”

  My aunts and my mother sat back and glared at me, arms crossed. Wow. I was in trouble.

  But I was persistent. This was illegal. “Do you have a license?”

  “A what?” my mother said.

  “A license to sell medical marijuana?” I knew they didn’t. I had a headache. I put my fingers to my temples. Jupiter jumped up on a stack of books and knocked it down. He meowed. I sighed. I had too many books or too many cats.

  “You need flower power,” my mother said. “For that

  headache. And what is a license to sell marijuana?”

  “We have car licenses and that’s all we need,” Aunt Iris said.