Frozen Stiff Drink

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2After that doozy of a text, I called Constance to discuss her prediction. Once learning her real identity, I'd been reticent to refer to her as Madam Zenya, the famed seer of all things evil. For all her kookiness and burdens, Constance was a sharp and kind woman. I was grateful she hadn't fought my unscrupulous purchase of her family home, which incidentally, wasn't my fault.

I hadn't known Hiram Grey stole it from the Garibaldi family fifty years ago, claiming both Constance and her sister, Prudence, had died and he was the beneficiary. When Constance resurfaced and shared the sordid tale of Hiram's misdeeds, we worked out a compromise for me to keep her house. After much deliberation, rather than refer to it as The Old Grey Place, we settled on the name Garzenwyck as an ode to all three, honoring the Garibaldi and Ayrwick families and Madam Zenya's generosity. When I informally polled all my friends and family, they agreed this was the ideal name.

Constance had stockpiled enough money in other avenues of her life, and I'd promised to look out for her new family. She'd gained a nephew, Damien, and a grandniece, Imogene—Lara's daughter—during Halloween. Since Constance was approaching eighty and suffering from declining health, she fussed about her relations. Kellan Ayrwick, gentleman extraordinaire, to the rescue!

Constance could only promise me the storm would trap Nana D somewhere cold and dark. If we didn't locate her in time, she'd lose the battle for survival in the blizzard's wake. Initially, alarm signals detonated like firecrackers. Then I realized we had full control of the situation. As long as Nana D remained at home, and Gabriel hovered in the cottage next door, she'd be as fit as a fiddle. I'd also check on her daily, even sleep at Danby Landing, thus thwarting the troublesome prognostication.

Once we hung up, I mustered the strength to survey the count of students who'd signed up for my upcoming summer courses. Enrollment dropped significantly lower than normal and dismayed me. I'd peeped every three hours in anticipation of upbeat improvements. There were none. After pocketing the mobile phone, I forced myself to exit the SUV. Upon tracing dry and cracked lips, my foggy breath lingered in the air as if to beg me for permission to hide back inside. My toes permanently curled into hooks from the chilling bite of a drafty wind. Its formidable death whistle nearly broke my eardrums.

I met Lara at the Pick-Me-Up Diner to discuss our Dark Reality segment on Hiram Grey. While plotting the major arcs and commercial breaks, we shared scrambled eggs and a stack of buttermilk pancakes because I needed a heavy dose of carbs to deal with the crazy, weather-fearing townspeople and she could eat anything without gaining an ounce.

“There's a name for people like you, but this gentleman won't say it aloud.” I swiped the check, adamant it was my turn. “You covered the last one. Besides, if the network compensates you with such an enormous salary that you insist on paying for every meal, I need to renegotiate my contract.”

Lara bundled up in a giant furry parka, pecked my still semi-frozen cheek, and sneered like a villain. “I'm worth every penny. Time to clear out of this storm's path. I suggest you do the same. We're gonna lose power for days according to the WCLN weatherman, you know. Nine snowmen!”

I rolled my eyes with massive exaggeration, then back again because it just felt like the right thing to do. “You work with the clown. Shouldn't you know he's never correct?”

“Even a broken clock gets the time right twice a day, Kellan.” Lara waved two gloved hands in my direction and vanished from the diner in a flutter.

I snatched some cash from my wallet and ambled to the counter to settle the bill.

Halfway there, Eustacia Paddington poked my lower abdomen with the pointy end of her cane. “Didn't you see me gesturing at you, Kellan? I know you're as blind as a bat even with those goggles you call glasses, but for criminy sakes. Get with it, boy wonder.” Eustacia, one of Nana D's closest friends and main enemies—it all depended on the time of day and who'd last won at Bingo—resembled Barney the Dinosaur this freezing morning. She donned an oddly shaped tracksuit that highlighted a paunchy belly and thin, frail arms destined to snap off at the slightest amount of pressure.

“Good morning, Eustacia. It never fails to astound me how different you appear every time we encounter one another.” I offered a middle-of-the-road statement that could be taken as a compliment or an insult, depending on your preferred interpretation. The air smelled faintly dirty, like a damp closet.

“Why, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. You've flattered this slightly older babe. Much obliged.” Eustacia pulled back her cane, then stomped it on the floor. It had been pressing on my bladder, keen to cause a considerable disaster in the middle of the Pick-Me-Up Diner. “Now, let's get back to business. Where is that intolerable grandmother of yours?”

I guessed they were frenemies at current count. “Working, I believe.”

The seventy-something spinster heading up the Paddington family stabbed a bony digit into my chest. A virulent mineral ice odor wafted through the air, encircling us in a cloud of hell. “Contact her. I want her to stay with me during the storm. The nitwit returned none of my four calls this morning.”

The clock read ten. Four calls already? “Sure, one minute.” I inched back, gingerly rubbing my chest and breathing fresh air. Either my workout was incredibly fierce, or she'd grown knives for fingers.

While the phone rang, Eustacia frowned. “Don't be silly. I didn't poke you that hard, baby.”

Nana D didn't answer her cell phone. Outside in the parking lot, feathery snow-dusted trees and car hoods. Trucks dropped piles of sandy ice melt. “Let me try her assistant.” I smiled with gritted teeth and turned around to witness Eleanor sheepishly covering her mouth and nose. Had she hoped to prevent herself from laughing aloud or inhaling the repugnant combination of menthol and mothballs?

“Shut up!” I rotated one-hundred-and-eighty degrees back to Eustacia, then greeted Nana D's assistant. Two minutes later, after listening to the infamous Kitty flip through a datebook and click ten billion keys on the keyboard—Nana D insisted on dual record-keeping for her calendar—I hung up.

“Well?” Eustacia huffed, leaned against the counter, took my change from the bill I'd just paid, and dropped it in the donation jar for a local homeless shelter. “You don't need the money. They do.”

“Nana D's assistant said she took off for the weekend. Since this whopper of a storm will worsen by Monday, and she'll be super busy next week, our mayor wanted to bucket some rest and relaxation today and tomorrow.” I wasn't sure what that meant, but Kitty had no idea where my grandmother traipsed off to. Nor was Nana D answering the cell phone when the nutty assistant rang her.

“What am I supposed to do with that nonsense of a reply? Precisely what a useless man would utter.” As Eustacia complained, her dentures slipped, and in trying to reseat them, they tumbled out of her mouth. “Oh Lord, not again! Catch them, Kellan, before they hit the dirty floor.”

“We just mopped!” Eleanor pushed her way toward us. In her attempt to capture the projectile teeth, she slipped on something wet and slid into Eustacia. My sister kicked the cane out of Eustacia's hands and knocked the woman's dentures further into the air above us. Eustacia fell toward me like a scarecrow leaping off a wooden pole burning furiously in a fire pit. I prevented the elderly woman from hitting the ground, but as I looked up to locate the flying marvels of dentistry, the set of teeth smacked me in the forehead and careened downward toward Eleanor.

“Got them!” Eleanor shouted, balancing herself to prevent our trio from splattering on the floor.

A group of patrons clapped in astonishment of our marvelous escapade as if we'd performed a show for their benefit. Siobhan Walsh was the only person I recognized. My former department admin stood near another flaming redhead, laughing and nodding. I caught my reflection in the mirrored wall behind them, containing any response until I could determine if a piece of chewed food was stuck to my forehead or if Eustacia's sharp incisors had sliced open my flesh. The hostess handed me a napkin, and after wiping myself clean, I whispered a silent prayer of gratitude it was only a diced tomato.

“I'll try to reach her later. Can't you stay with family?” I thought of her grandnephew, Sam Taft, my brother's boyfriend who was coincidently home for a few days. If I had to suffer through this hornet's nest with Eustacia, my brother Gabriel could take one for the family too.

“As if. Everyone's busy with their own priorities. Jennifer and Arthur are loony gaga over their kid. You know, not all infants are cute. I don't know why people tell silly lies.” Eustacia smiled facetiously, placed her teeth back inside her quivering mouth, and shook her head and jaw to situate them. “Ophelia and Dana are on some excursion in Europe. Timothy and your Aunt Deirdre are waiting for their new miracle test-tube baby to arrive any day now. What is this world coming to?”

“Isn't Lilly around?” Eleanor tried not to laugh as the woman struggled to adjust her dentures.

Eustacia leaned toward the mirror to fix the issue. “That girl is as useless as a pair of chopsticks scooping pebbles in a bowl of soup while riding a scooter on a high wire. Lilly's so desperate for money, she's pulled out all the stops to convince me to empty her trust. What childish problems she's causing!”

I wasn't a fan of Lilly Taft, her grandniece, after our run-in the previous year when the girl's grandmother had died at a theater performance. Eustacia had been left in charge of all the family money and wouldn't grant Lilly her inheritance until she behaved in a more polished and presentable manner. “Yep, I'll see what I can do.” With a great aunt like Eustacia, how would Lilly learn?

“Bundle up, kiddoes. Jack the Ripper is gonna be nipping at your toes tonight in this deep freeze.” Eustacia stumbled through the front parlor and waited for her Uber driver, Cheney Stoddard, a mid-twenties recent transplant to the area, to escort her down the stairs. He'd been working part-time as a chauffeur and on a few construction sites to earn money and stay out of trouble. A gust of wind knocked Eustacia's hat off, and as she dived to grab it, the old bat—Nana D's nickname for the woman, not mine—nearly fell off the platform into a frozen rhododendron bush. Cheney caught the hat and the grand dame, hastily steered her to his car, and smiled back at us knowingly.

Eleanor turned to me with a befuddled and harried glare. “Does she mean Jack Frost?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” We burst into laughter, uncertain what neuroses manifested in the eccentric woman's head.

I greeted Manny, the Pick-Me-Up Diner's manager, as he approached. “Buenos dias, amigo.” My Spanish had improved tremendously in the last year, courtesy of this super patient man.

“I'm glad to see someone is chipper around here. Could things get any worse today?” Manny, an immigrant from El Salvador, was a highly educated and respectable member of the town, but he'd suffered through a rough year after being duped by a mob family who'd sought revenge against my wife. Once he'd extricated himself from that debacle, Manny and Eleanor acknowledged their feelings for one another and began dating six months ago.

“Please don't tell me you're frightened of this storm too.” I slapped my forehead, realizing another tiny piece of tomato stuck to the curls of my untamable blond hair. “Hogwash!”

Eleanor fished it out, then grabbed the tablet from Manny's hands. “No, he's downloading the latest reviews for the diner. We gained three negative ones this week, and people are gossiping about it now. I hate when the trolls leave the bridge in search of fodder!”