Chapter 15
The next thing Ingrid knew, she and Clemmie were standing on the first floor and, to the accompaniment of blaring music, Miles’s favored nineties trip-hop, Clemmie was taking it all in.
The stacks of roofing shingles on the entrance foyer floor, along with Miles’s toolbox, and a roll of blue plastic liner for the roof.
There were also shoes everywhere, Miles’s battered work boots, Ingrid’s sandals, ballet flats, black Converse.
The distinct smell of leftover cilantro fish tacos from the Loefflers’ party wafted through the air.
“I hadn’t really expected guests—” Ingrid began.
“Oh my dear,” Clemmie called out from deep in the front hall.
“You have no idea. I’m in heaven. Heaven.
” The woman turned back to Ingrid, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Every architectural detail, perfectly intact.” She pointed to the ceiling, the windows, the stairway.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a house in this town that has been completely untouched, walls intact, moldings and medallions not slathered in paint or varnish, not stripped down to modernize … ” She said this last word like a curse.
“It’s the same as when my grandmother bought it—” Ingrid said.
But Clemmie had moved on to the sitting room and was spinning in a circle, her arms outstretched. “Look at these pieces …” She was touching things now: sofa, love seat, tables, and chairs.
Ingrid looked around the room in acute dismay.
Burger King wrappers covered one chair. A stack of comic books rested on another.
Her notebook, pens, colored pencils were strewn across the sofa, from her last session of journaling.
Even the surface of the coffee table was obscured by empty Sprite cans, water bottles, and White Claws.
Peanut shells littered the rose-patterned rug.
Clemmie fingered the thick drapes on the tall, narrow windows. “You still have the old pulley system windows.”
Ingrid nodded. Litha, perched on the back of a tattered armchair, watched Clemmie with mild curiosity.
Clemmie ran a hand over the carved curves of the white marble mantelpiece. “A working fireplace?”
“Yes.”
Clemmie tutted with sheer relief. “Just divine.” She moved to the dining room where she touched Edie’s old pieces, nodding the whole time, as if she was mentally cataloging it all.
The table where they used to sit, just Edie and her, eating tuna casserole or mac and cheese and black-eyed peas.
Where Ingrid blew out the candles on every birthday cake Edie baked her, age seven to nineteen.
Clemmie reappeared in the arch between the dining and sitting room. “Got any bubbles?”
For one breathless second, Ingrid thought the woman was talking about the bubble bath Edie used to bathe her in, the one that came in the pink plastic bottle.
Clemmie sauntered past Ingrid, pushed aside a stack of bills on the ottoman and sat.
Flushing, Ingrid took the bills and crammed them into the credenza drawer.
She turned, to see Miles coming from the kitchen where he must’ve been hiding this whole time, bearing a bottle of wine in one hand and two relatively clean-looking glasses in the other. Not bubbles but close. Ingrid sent him a look of gratitude.
Clemmie straightened, her eyes bright, knees primly pressed together. The fingers of her right hand tickled the wrinkled, age-spotted skin below the open neck of her blouse. “Who’s this?”
“Ah.” Ingrid moved quickly to Miles’s side. “Clemmie Fairburn, this is my roommate and friend, Miles Drummond.”
Miles offered Clemmie the pirate grin he used on his tours. “Thought you ladies might be looking for a little refreshment.” He poured the wine into the two glasses, then jammed the cork back in with a pop of his palm and set it on the coffee table.
“What a nice vintage.” Clemmie’s eyes moved from the label of the wine—something French Ingrid couldn’t decipher—to Miles then back to Ingrid.
Ingrid felt herself go scarlet again. She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole, but it didn’t, and Clemmie just drank her wine, not saying whether she recognized the bottle as one served by Rill and Scoot Loeffler at the engagement party of their daughter.
Miles gathered a few fast-food wrappers and sat, elbows propped on his golden-haired knees. Clemmie’s fingers continued to play over her chest, as she studied Miles, looking as if she’d like to put a dollop of whipped cream on his head and eat him with a spoon.
“Now, honey,” she said to Ingrid. “I want you to know that I go way back with Cousin Scoot, even before she married Rill, and I love her like a sister—”
Ingrid gulped and braced herself for some new revelation.
“—but I’m here to tell you, she’s a jealous woman. She keeps score like you wouldn’t believe. Memory like an elephant. I’d like to think she’s over the whole Edie thing, is what I’m saying.”
Ingrid just stared at her.
Clemmie widened her eyes meaningfully. “You know … everything that happened with Rill and her—”
Ingrid glanced at Miles. He’d bolted upright and moved to the edge of his seat, interest lighting up his turquoise eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Ingrid said, keeping her face very still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Clemmie sucked down another inch of the Loefflers’ French wine then held out her empty glass to Miles, who jumped to oblige.
“I hate to be a tattletale, sugar,” said Clemmie who obviously loved being a tattletale, “but thirty years back, when he and Scoot were engaged, Rill fell plumb in love with your grandmother. He was just crazy about her, and there wasn’t a damn thing Scoot could do about it.
They never got together, per se—Edie was too old for him, and she knew it—but Scoot couldn’t accept it.
Couldn’t just be happy that she’d won. No, that girl was fit to be tied, and I don’t think she’s ever gotten over it, not even up till the day Edie died. ”
Ingrid pictured her grandmother on her bed. Her frail body wrapped in the lavender mohair sweater. The hands like claws. The panting sound, gravelly and shallow. Ingrid felt faint.
“She’s not right, you know,” Clemmie said.
“Somebody dropped that one on her head when she was a baby. Scoot’s always been mean.
” She sighed and gulped her wine. She seemed to have lost interest in Ingrid, Miles, the house, suddenly distracted and sad.
“But I see Sailor bringing you around, showing you off to all her friends last night. Calling you her new psychic.” She fixed Ingrid with a steady look.
“Scoot didn’t like you being at that party, is what I’m trying to say.
And I’m afraid she isn’t going to want to see you around anyplace else near the family either.
It’ll just remind her how, at one time, she played second fiddle to another woman who could tell the future. ”
The air was still in the room, the silence oppressive, and then there was a sudden chime of bells, mechanical and loud. Ingrid jumped, and Litha meowed and slunk out of the room. Another customer at the downstairs door.
Ingrid looked at Miles. “Miles, would you—”
He jumped up, clearly glad to escape the uncomfortable scene. “I’ll tell them you’re busy.”
Ingrid nodded and he hustled out of the room and clattered down the stairs.
Clemmie topped off her glass. “I’m not trying to be mean, sugar. I hope you know that. But I’m not going to lie. Scoot Loeffler is a snake in the grass. So you just watch your step, all right?”
“Ingrid.” Miles stood near the top of the stairs, only his golden curls and the top half of his head showing.
“What is it?” Ingrid’s tone was sharper than she intended, but, Goddess, did he not get that this was a delicate moment?
“Ingrid, hi! I’m so sorry to interrupt …” Sailor Loeffler’s head poked out from behind Miles.
Ingrid stood. “Sailor. What are you doing here?”
Sailor edged around Miles and rushed into the sitting room. She held up a small silver gift bag with a tuft of tissue paper poking out of the top. “For you,” she said to Ingrid. “It’s just a little something. A candle. I hope you like it.”
Clemmie squared her shoulders in delight. “Sailor, darlin’!”
“Oh, Clemmie. Hey.” Sailor’s magnificent mane of blond hair swung around, making her look like a shampoo model. “What are you doing here?”
Miles, staring, hadn’t moved from his spot at the top of the stairs.
Clemmie rose, wobbling precariously, and swooped at Sailor, kissing her extravagantly on both cheeks. “Me and Ingrid are just talking about the future, my sweet little cousin, that’s all.” She went to gather her purse, but Sailor kept hold of her wrist.
“Oh, but you can’t go. Not yet. You have to hear the news.” She set down the gift bag, then turned to Ingrid, her face like a sunbeam. “You did a spell, didn’t you? Tell the truth.”
Ingrid shook her head, confused. “Yes, but just this morning …”
“Oh my,” Clemmie murmured.
Sailor was practically emitting beams of light. “Ingrid. Mom just got a call from Costa Rica. From a cultivator of exotic flowers. He grows the flowers there. The jade vine I wanted for my bouquet.”
Already? Ingrid pictured the orange peel, its burnt rim gone cold on her altar. She felt her body flood with warmth. With light. It’s what happened every time she knew a spell worked. She could feel Edie all around her. She wanted to dance around the room and shout her victory.
“He just called her out of the blue,” Sailor went on.
“He said he heard from someone in the Philippines that she was looking for the flower. He can force the blooms for us in September and have a colleague deliver them in time for the wedding.” Sailor was grasping Ingrid’s hands, shaking them excitedly. “And not just that …” she continued.
“The harpist—” Ingrid said breathlessly.
“How did you know?” screamed Sailor and grabbed her, giddily dancing around the room. “We got the harpist! We got the harpist, too! You did it, Ingrid! You did it!”