All About Evie (ARC)

by Cathy Lamb

  I pointed to her. “Your daughter is reading, wait for it”—she raised her eyebrows—“a memoir.”

  Her mother gasped. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  The mother bought her daughter three memoirs. The mother winked at me when she left. “No more vampires for a few days.” She mimicked chomping down on someone’s neck, and I laughed.

  Jules had to leave the island the next day. She came into town to hug me at the bookstore.

  “Whew. Got a lot ready and done for the wedding, but Mom

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  and Aunt Iris and Aunt Camellia are all quiet and secretive. I can’t figure it out. It’s something about the DNA test. It’s confusing.” She ran a hand through that long blonde hair of hers, then started playing with her three necklaces. “They seemed almost angry about the whole thing. Or worried.”

  “It’s both, I think. Mom won’t talk to me about it. I don’t get it.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “Maybe they do think it’s a violation of their privacy.”

  “Maybe they’re worried that who they think they are isn’t who they are.”

  “We’ll show them our results when we get them. Maybe they’ll feel better then, find it interesting and not invasive. They’ll try to figure out which part of our makeup is from Mom, which is from Dad, then maybe they’ll do it.”

  “Maybe.”

  Maybe not.

  Probably not. I didn’t understand their vehemence, how adamantly they were against the test. I didn’t understand my mother’s inexplicable sadness.

  That bugged me. I like to understand as much about life as possible, especially with my premonitions curse, and this one I did not understand.

  Two days later, Chief Reginald Ass Burn lumbered into my bookstore, my haven, my slice of literary heaven, in his uniform, chest puffed up, face flushed around the edges. His scraping negativity was already invading my space. It’s hard to have mean people around your books, infecting them.

  “Evie, may I have a word with you?”

  As soon as I saw him I had tried to sneak like a snake up the stairs to my office. Surely it was time for the chocolate chip cookies I brought for a snack?

  “Yes?”

  “Privately, please,” he commanded. He dropped those slitty

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  eyes to my chest. I was wearing a black classic T-shirt with my favorite women’s rock band and jeans that stopped mid-shin embroidered with white roses at the bottom.

  “I’m very busy right now,” I said. “What can I help you with?”

  “I want to talk to you about your ticket. Alone.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you alone. What about my ticket? I paid it. In full.”

  “I told you, hon, that you didn’t need to do that. You only had to get your taillight fixed and come to me with your ticket when it was done and I would reduce it. I told you that you might have a lucky day.” He smirked at me.

  Oh, gross. So gross. First, calling me “hon” and then saying I might have a “lucky day.” He was trying to insert a sick slice of sexuality. In my bookstore! A place of literary excellence. A place for books, for authors, for creativity and pie and cake and tea and coffee. A place for kids to learn to love books. A place for reading, the holy grail of life.

  “First off, don’t call me ‘hon.’ ” My voice was like iron crush-ing nails. “You are not a member of my family, you are not my boyfriend or husband. I have a name. It’s Evie. Or you can call me Ms. Lindsay. I am comfortable with that. Second, I don’t need to have a ‘lucky day’ with you for a ticket. I don’t appreciate the sexual connotation, as it makes me feel nauseated. I didn’t want to have a conversation with you, as our last conversation was unpleasant for me, so I paid it in full so I could avoid you.”

  His eyes narrowed. He had lost. In a way. He had way over-charged me but had wanted to cut the amount down, as he knew it was unreasonable. He had wanted to appear magnani-mous, the generous male savior. I had taken his control of that scenario away.

  “I’ll need to talk to you about that, Evie.”

  “We have nothing further to say about it. You gave me a ticket, I paid it. I wrote a letter of complaint to your boss, as I thought the fine was excessive, and I made a copy of the ticket and I wrote down everything you said to me, verbatim.” I watched with pleasure as Chief Ass Burn’s face lost color and

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  became a fleshy white. “I fixed my taillight. If there’s nothing else, I have to work now.”

  I turned away and bumped straight into Marco. At some point he’d come up behind me. He was standing still, his eyes locked on the chief.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked, his body stiff, watchful. He was wearing a short-sleeved black T-shirt, and his tattoos showed. Who knew that tattoos could be so sexy? I studied the tattoos for a second on those muscles, then tried to refocus.

  “I don’t think it’s your business, Marco,” Chief Reginald Ass Burn said, but he was uncomfortable, I could tell. Men who have nothing to them always get uncomfortable around men who have something to them.

  “Oh, it’s his business,” I said. I told Marco how much my ticket was for a broken taillight but that I’d paid it in full.

  “I heard about your ticket, Evie.” He kept his eyes on the chief. “I received the town text about it. It was overly punitive, Reginald. I’ve never heard of a ticket being so high for a broken taillight. Surely the state of Washington has an average ticket price for that sort of thing. You’ve gone well beyond reasonable.”

  Chief Ass Burn twitched, flushed. “I offered to reduce it. All Evie here had to do was get it fixed, then make an appointment to talk to me at the station, and I’d take care of it for her.”

  “He said I could have a lucky day with him,” I told Marco, not moving my eyes away from the chief. “I’m sure the chief only meant that I would get lucky in terms of paying less.”

  Marco took a step closer to the chief. He was about six inches taller, built like a tank, and ticked off. He stepped in front of me. I think it was protectively reflexive. Romantic. Although, I told myself, I could slay my own dragons. Still! What a handsome tattooed prince I had!

  “ ‘Lucky day’ is an inappropriate term to use with a woman, especially since you are the island’s temporary police chief.”

  “I don’t need you telling me what’s appropriate and what’s not, Marco. You stay out of this.”

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  “No,” Marco said, his voice quiet but hard. “I won’t.”

  “Is there anything else?” I asked the chief.

  Chief Ass Burn glared at both of us, back and forth, then smirked, but he’d lost some of his confidence. “Not now. Maybe later.”

  He left the bookstore. My employees, Tiala, Ricki, and Brenz, had watched the whole thing. They were right behind me, and I hadn’t even noticed. Also behind me were about six other people who lived in town, plus another three or four tourists.

  “Chief Ass Burn is a piece of work,” Mr. Jamon croaked out, leaning on his cane with one hand while the other hand held a torrid bodice-ripper book.

  We all nodded.

  Marco had hardly moved, watching the chief leave.

  “Hi, Marco.” My voice was shaky.

  “Hi, Evie. I was looking for some new books.”

  “I happen to sell books.”

  He smiled. I smiled. He was a gentle, tough giant.

  And a reader.

  That was one of the most attractive things of all about my Marco. He was a book nerd.

  Book nerds unite.

  I thought about Chief Ass Burn later that night. He was a threat. He was a heavy, unattractive man with control issues.

  Probably a narcissist. Praise him or he hated you. He wanted to date me, but he hated me, too, because I had rejected him.

  I was worried. Not for me but for my aunts and mom and their new business in the greenhouse.

 
Once again, I told them of my ratcheting-up concerns after work the next day. We cut flowers for their business, armfuls of roses, then stood near Alpaca Joe and Virginia Alpaca as they stared at the four of us as if they were part of the conversation.

  As Sundance was by my side, that furry friend, it felt like we were having a human–animal meeting. In the distance Mr. Bob and Trixie Goat stood on top of their blue home and studied us as if saying, “What in the world? Why weren’t we invited?”

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  “We’ll be fine, dear,” my mother said. She seemed sad. “No one will tell.”

  “We have to carry on our mission for nurturing the people of this island. The marijuana helps them, soothes their minds and bodies when they’re broken,” Aunt Camellia said.

  “We’re going to Antarctica on pot,” Aunt Iris said. “At least, partially. There is no way we can sell enough pot to pay for the whole thing. Seeing and studying icebergs, ocean currents, and penguins is expensive. I’m the chief financial officer, so I know.”

  They had a chief financial officer for their pot business?

  Geez. What was my mother, the chief executive? I groaned. Was there going to be a board of directors next? How had it come to this?

  I argued, they shut me down. Alpaca Joe spit. Virginia Alpaca made a purring sort of sound. Sundance looked up at me like,

  “We tried,” and the goats bleated. Wait. The bleating was too close to me. Somehow, some way, Mr. Bob and Trixie Goat had escaped again, and they skittered around the edge of the alpacas’ fence and right up to us to join the conversation.

  “How did you get out?” I semi-shouted. “I can’t believe this.”

  I would have to chase them to get them back into their pen.

  They kicked up their heels and ran.

  “Please stop selling pot,” I said to my mother and aunts, before Sundance and I ran after the naughty goats. “Chief Ass Burn is a problem.”

  My mother smiled, that mysterious sadness still there, though. “No one will tell him.”

  Aunt Camellia said, winding her curls on top of her head, “I’ve already put multiple curses on him with my vengeful candle.”

  Aunt Iris said, “He knows he’s not allowed on this property.

  But I think I’ll make a sign and nail it to the big oak right at the turnoff on Robbins Drive.”

  I spent over two hours caring for and visiting with my animals after catching Mr. Bob and Trixie Goat. Butch and Cassidy ran around with their tongues out chasing squirrels, but Sun-

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  dance stuck right by me. I do have a favorite, and it is Sundance, but I would never tell, or show, my other animals that. I reached down and pet his head. He licked my hand, then stood up for a one-armed hug.

  Mr. Bob and Trixie Goat climbed on top of the roof of their little house and danced around as if they enjoyed hearing their own hooves tap. Shakespeare and Jane Austen chased each other and came right over for me to pet their heads. The cats circled my legs. The alpacas wandered around their home. I think Virginia Alpaca likes to play hard to get. It drives Alpaca Joe nuts. The lambs trotted out of their pen in a little line, as usual.

  So obedient.

  “Hello, Padre, Momma, Jay Rae, Raptor, and The TMan.”

  No matter how much work they are, no matter how early I have to get up every day to take care of them, no matter how many times I’m at Marvelous Marco’s paying vet bills, I love my animals. They have given me peace.

  Aunt Iris made the sign. She nailed it to the big oak at the turnoff.

  It said, “Chief Ass Burn: You Are Not Allowed on Our Property.”

  That’ll do it, I thought, getting to be quite the cynic. He’ll definitely stay off the property even when he finds out you three are selling pot out of the greenhouse.

  I was beginning to feel sick about their “business venture.”

  Jules and I received e-mails that the DNA company had received our vials of spit.

  “Pretty fun, huh?” Jules said when she called me that night.

  “We’ll find out where those ancestors of ours are from.”

  “We’re from witch country. Soon we’ll know.”

  “I think I’ll get a sexy witch outfit for me and a warlock outfit for Mack. That’d be fun. Not long before I’m Mrs. Motorcycle Rider! Mack is so brave. He’s so confident. When I bring home new sex toys, he’s always game to try them out.”

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  “That’s very courageous.”

  “I know!” She sniffled. “Anything I want to try, he wants to try. He doesn’t make me feel silly or stupid for asking, he just smiles that smile at me when I tell him, well, when I ask him if he wants to play dress up or do role-play or try new games or toys, and he always says, ‘Anything you want to do, Sugar Love Jules, we’ll do, you’re my apple pie.’ And so we do.”

  A little too much detail, but okay! “He has an adventurous spirit like you.”

  “Yes, he does. He’ll try anything in bed at all. Doesn’t even mind my crazy ideas! He makes me feel sexy.” She burst into tears. “I love him so much! I can’t wait to get married with you as my maid of honor.”

  “Stop, stop!” I teared up and blew my nose.

  I drove Torrance’s books out to him again and passed by the battered yellow house that I didn’t want to see. On my way back I pulled into the drive, turned off my car, and let the memories pour over me. There was an air of depression around the sagging, dilapidated house, although maybe that was me per-sonifying it.

  Emily Medegna and I were best friends for three years. She was also close to Jules, because whenever Emily came over, Jules was there, too. We also had a bunch of other girlfriends of all ages on the island, the sisters and cousins of our friends.

  It was an island gang of girls, so to speak. We spied on boys.

  We went on hikes with our moms. We played in the ocean. We went out on other parents’ sailboats. We played in the lake and jumped off the dock. We had picnics. When it rained we read books together and made tents with blankets. We did not play with dolls. We did not pretend we were princesses, hoping to be rescued. We played Island Warrior Women and we fought off bad guys and zombies and King Kong with homemade swords and pretend bombs.

  We were tough! We were brave! We were the Island Girls Gang.

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  And one day, one of the members of the Island Girls Gang betrayed the other by forgetting to help. Forgetting to prevent.

  Forgetting to save.

  There was a disastrous, tragic consequence that was all my fault.

  I betrayed my friend and her family, and her life fell off a cliff for years. She left the island. Then she disappeared. My guilt has never left me. I manage it, I forget about it sometimes, but it’s still there, lurking.

  I laid my head on the steering wheel, guilt, remorse, and unbearable sadness whipping over me like a wave, drowning me.

  I fought my depression that afternoon. I could feel it coming on like a black thing. I knew how to handle it. I left my bookstore and drove to a lake in the local state park and walked around it until my legs ached. I breathed. I ate bananas because for some reason bananas help me with my anxiety. I had chocolate milk in the bath and ate strawberries. I washed my sheets and cleaned up the house. Organizing helps me get my mind off my depression.

  It was late when I went to bed. I read for two hours, slipping into fiction so I could slip out of my dark mind-set. Sundance stayed up with me for most of the night with an expression that said, “Can we go to sleep now? Are you okay?” Sundance was so in tune with me and my feelings. His head was on his pillow, his pink blankie beneath him, Lizard in his paws. Finally I could no longer keep my eyes open.

  “Good night, everyone,” I said to the dogs and cats. And I whispered, “Good night, Emily.”

  “What’s it like, Evie?”

  “What’s what like, Sally?”

  “To see the future.”

  “I don’t see the
future.” The bookstore was busy today.

  Partly because we were selling six-layer Chocolate Cake Ecstasy.

  “You ran over to my house yesterday, coming out of no -

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  where, and stood under my tree right as Ellen was falling. You don’t expect me to believe that you can’t see the future.”

  “I was on my way to your house to visit.” I was not on my way to Sally’s house to visit. I had a vision of that cat falling out of her tree. The cat is eighteen years old. It’s half blind and totally deaf. I mean, lots of people think cats are “selectively deaf.” That is not the case with this cat. She is totally deaf. And Sally loves her.

  Sally is a widow. She’s a former doctor from Seattle. Her husband died last year. She is seventy-four and has been pushing that cat in a cat stroller for years. In fact her husband made her a cat stroller before cat strollers were even a thing. That’s how much she loves Ellen.

  But the problem wasn’t only the cat. I saw the cat falling from the tree and one of Beck Hornwith’s dogs biting it. The cat died. I saw Sally weeping over her body, and I couldn’t stand it.

  That’s why I had to run, which I hate to do, to her house. Running should be outlawed.

  “No, you weren’t coming over to visit, but thanks for saving Ellen.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “But what’s it like? Can you see anything about me?”

  I held a book out. The book was about the national parks.

  She put a hand to her throat. “Oh, my goodness! Why? I wonder why? I’ll take it, Evie!”

  One week later, Sally booked a trip with a traveling group to see four national parks.

  I had zippo premonitions about Sally. She needed to get out of her grief and live a little.

  She had a terrific time.

  The car accident premonition arrived smack out of the blue again as I was driving to the bookstore the next morning. The tight, curving road in the mountain was the same, the sunlight filtering through, the orange poppies.