One Less Problem Without You (3 page)

It was fantastic.

Or maybe it was just
needed
. Hard to say at that particular point. It was probably both, to be honest. At any rate, it warmed my soul going down, and eased my mind once it hit.

Maybe it eased my mind a little too much, because soon I started to get a little wobbly in my anger. And by “wobbly” I mean “irrational,” and by “irrational” I mean I decided it would perhaps not be a
terrible
idea to make a tea to poison my husband.

 

CHAPTER TWO

Prinny

The truth was, she hated being called Prinny.

“Lillian” was so much more dignified. And that's what she wanted, to be dignified, rather than Daddy's Little Princess, aka Prinny. Even her “halo of golden curls,” as her parents had referred to her hair, made her look like a child's imagining of a fairy-tale princess. Sounds like a silly thing to complain about until you realize no one takes you seriously. Prinny. It wasn't a name that
could
be taken seriously. And yet Lillian might as well not have been her name, since no one had ever called her that.

Even her classmates had ended up calling her Prinny, so the label her father had, with good and loving intentions, put on her as a child had now stuck with her almost thirty years into life. It had long since stopped conjuring a fairy tale and had more recently, she felt, made her sound like a little old spinster from
Gone with the Wind
.

Not that she didn't appreciate the fact that her father had cared so much; she did. He was all she'd had. Until she'd lost him. Now she had only an adversarial stepbrother and a kind but meek sister-in-law with whom she was barely in touch.

Prinny's mother had died when she was only six years old, so she didn't really remember her very well—in fact, sometimes she wondered if her “memories” were memories at all or if they were just her own psychic intuition of what her mother had been like—but the one thing that everyone always said about Ingrid Tiesman was that she was the picture of dignity and sophistication.

It was hard for someone who had been basically called a baby all her life to live up to that.

Yet Prinny had loved her father hugely, so she never wanted to ask him not to use the affectionate term for her that was so special that even his tone softened when he said it in a way she never heard it change at any other time.

“Where's my Prinny?” he'd ask when he came in at the end of a long day at work. Given the speed with which the maid would also bring him a Scotch on the rocks, in her earlier days, Prinny had never been quite sure whether
his Prinny
was her or the drink. But soon enough she realized, after he'd downed the first and asked for “another rocks,” which would appear as promptly as if it had already been ready and waiting to go, that she was the Prinny and the drink was … well, the drink was his binkie.

In the end it was his poison. But that's an old story. Who hasn't heard it or told it or both? She lost her mother when she was six, she lost her father at twenty-six, and somehow, in the twenty years between, she'd never quite learned how to be a grown-up.

People thought she didn't know that, but she did. There was always a vague panic humming like a bad subwoofer under the weight of Led Zeppelin, telling her that the time was coming when it was all going to blow up in her face. She didn't have it in her to handle the weight of a real, adult life.

Her mother had died at the age of twenty-six. Prinny had passed that landmark with the full expectation that something magical would happen and she would suddenly understand all the little things she needed to about getting by, day to day, on her own and handling things like insurance, business, all the things her dad had always handled for her.

Instead, her father's liver finally cried uncle and he died, leaving her alone in the world, with an estate executor who was in charge of pulling all the financial strings in her life, and an older stepbrother, Leif, who, in the three years since, had been hell-bent on taking over her portion of their shared inheritance so she would stop “squandering” it.

All of life was a game of
Leif Says
now. Fortunately, Alex McConnell—the executor of her father's estate—didn't seem daunted by Leif, even as the battle waged on and on, because Prinny sure was.

Prinny was also pretty daunted by Alex McConnell, though she could never admit it to a soul. He was married; the picture on his desk of him and his beautiful wife posed in a typical beachy vacation spot proved that Prinny could never stand a chance with a guy like him. There were types, and he was a gorgeous, smart, successful,
married
type. And though Prinny had never met her, she knew the wife was the sort of gorgeous, pouty woman who always got her way, and whom a man would chase around the globe forever, just for the favor of her smile.

Prinny would never be that woman.

But she was in love with that man, and she had to settle for her time with him being business related. In fact, she had to settle for her
life
being business-centric. She needed to succeed on her own; she needed to be self-sufficient. She wanted to understand her finances, her investments, and everything she'd need to keep her going, even if she was alone forever (as she feared she might be).

She needed absolute financial independence.

That was the only thing that would give her complete control; the only lifestyle that didn't care if she was a little insecure and a little round in the hip and a little flakey, and very shy with men.

She would have said
especially men like Alex,
but there was one who was even worse for her nerves, though he offered none of the fun that her interactions with Alex did: Leif. Somewhere deep inside she was terrified of Leif, even though one of the only things she remembered well was her mother reassuring her that Leif was more scared of her than she could ever be of him.

Didn't matter. Leif was powerful, and he was doing everything he could to sabotage her inheritance and, it seemed, her very life.

That's why she'd opened Cosmos. She needed to have a legitimate business, legitimate expenses, a storefront, all those things, so that Leif couldn't accuse her of being incompetent. Anyway, that's what Alex had advised her.

He hadn't exactly advised her to open a metaphysical shop, however. In fact, when she'd told him that was what she intended to do, she sensed some backpedaling on his part, and the fact that at least several times a week drunks stumbled in, thinking it was a bar, didn't help her case much.

But still … it was what she was born to do, she knew it.

When she was around eleven years old, her favorite nanny, Marie (whom she liked to think of as Mary, as in Poppins, despite her Jamaican sun-dark skin, with a note of mahogany Prinny always puzzled over), had taken her up to the broad-beamed walk-in attic of the house and showed her something that would change her life.

As soon as she opened the door, Marie had put a finger to her lips,
shhhh,
even though they were the only two home. “You do not tell anyone a word that I show you this,” she said, her accent—which Prinny could still not identify to this day, especially since she had only her childhood memory to rely on—thick and mysterious.

Prinny had nodded eagerly, doing the sign of
cross my heart and hope to die,
though she always crossed her fingers during the second part of that, since, apparently, it was incredibly easy to die unexpectedly. Even her mom had done it!

Don't think that way,
the Voice said in her mind.
Life is magical, wonderful, and meant to be lived fully.

Marie closed the door behind them and took Prinny's hand, leading her into the thick, hot, dusty air, to a trunk that was only slightly illuminated by the high vent at the peak of the roof. It was August in D.C., which was about as hot as hell or anyplace like it could get. Prinny had trouble breathing, but she knew she had to be silent; she couldn't let out the cough that was trying so desperately to escape.

“I found this by accident,” Marie said, then added, as if she'd been questioned, “I was up here looking for a fan for your room, and I found it accidentally, but I think you should know.”

Even at that young age, something trembled through Prinny. What had she found? What could it possibly be? Was it a body? Was it
about
to be—her own? She'd been reading Nancy Drew books like a fiend at that point, and it was all too easy for her to believe that people weren't who they said they were. Ever.

She hung back, ready to turn and run, but Marie felt the resistance and turned to face her. “Oh, child,” she said, that indeterminate accent somehow thickening and softening all at the same time, “this has to do with your mama, so you
know
it's a
good
thing.”

In her mind, Prinny saw colors. Lots of colors, pictures, cards, and … rocks?

Prinny looked into Marie's eyes, trying to scrutinize, with all the wisdom and experience an eleven-year-old could possibly muster, the truth of her intentions. Her eyes were so kind, Prinny thought she couldn't possibly be lying.

And Marie had never, ever been mean to Prinny, never raised her voice, much less a hand, and she'd been with her longer than any of the others, more than a year now. She'd even made sure to put pictures of Prinny's mother here and there, even though Prinny's dad kept taking them down, because she insisted it was important that Prinny feel her mother's presence in the house.

Prinny never told anyone that she did. Constantly. Sometimes she even
saw
her mother. But even at that age, she knew she couldn't say that without scaring people.

So Prinny went with Marie into the thick stale air, and watched as she opened the trunk. “This, child, is what we call a treasure chest.” She sat down on the floor and patted the dusty wood next to her.

“What is it?”

“Your mama's things.”

“You mean like clothes and shoes?” Prinny tried to work out how there could be more when the people had come and taken away rack after rack of clothes that smelled of her mother's familiar Jean Patou Joy perfume, “for charity,” as her dad and Leif had said.

Yet for a moment, Prinny's heart leaped at the idea of smelling that delicious, comforting scent one more time, of perhaps wrapping herself in one of her mother's garments, untouched since Mama herself had carefully put it away. She wanted to try on the strappy, high-heeled shoes and see if they fit yet.

In fact, she was diving fully into a fantasy of clopping around the attic in her mother's shoes, looking for a mirror (there had to be one up here; wasn't there a mirror, cracked or otherwise, in every spooky attic?) when Marie handed her a box.

Prinny took it uncertainly. It was a small box. Not a shoe box. Too small, even, for a filmy scarf to fit in it. “What's this?”

Your legacy. Your history. Your gift.

“Cards,” Marie said reverently. “Cards that tell the future!”

Suddenly the box felt like it was trembling, and Prinny dropped it, though it was probably her hand that had trembled. It was now. “Did they tell Mama she was going to die?” She knew they had. She just
knew
it.

Marie appeared to consider. “Maybe. I don't know what your mama learned from them.”

Prinny suddenly felt scared. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Oh, child.” Marie moved toward her and put a meaty arm around Prinny's narrow, bony shoulder, pulling her into her ample bosom. “Because these are the tools of
magic
. This is a
gift
your mama has left for you, and finally we have found it.”

“Magic?” Witches sprang to mind. Of course. “Magic” was not a bad word in Prinny's mind. Not at all. Magic was something she wanted to believe in. No, she
needed
to believe in it. It was her only way to connect to her mother and to the happy life she felt had already eluded her.

“Come look.” Marie started taking things gently out of the box. “Look at this bag of pretty stones she collected.” She handed it over to Prinny.

It was a mesh bag, about the size of a paper lunch bag, at least half full of pretty stones, some cut, some smooth, some sparkling in the dim light, and others dull, receding like little rock shadows at the ocean's edge. “What are they for?”

“All different things,” Marie said, helping Prinny open the bag, then taking them out one by one. “This one is rose quartz. That's a magic rock to help you find love.”

“But Mama had Daddy!”

Marie smiled. “Maybe this is why.” She curled her fist tight around the rock and held it to her chest for a moment. “It's very powerful. Also for self-love. You know it's important to love yourself, don't you, child? If you don't, how's anyone else gon' to?”

Prinny didn't understand that concept, but she didn't care. She liked the idea that she had found some magic talisman that had given her mother and father to each other, and when she touched it, it buzzed against the tender skin of her palm. She would save the stone, she determined right then and there, so that someday she would be able to find her own husband.

Though it did occur to her later, and she hated herself for it, that maybe it hadn't been so lucky after all. Had she been willing to give up her life so young, just to find love at twenty-one? Even at eleven that had seemed like a pretty bad deal.

“This one”—Marie took out what looked like a great big diamond—“is a plain ol' crystal quartz. Very
very
magical.”

“It looks like a diamond!”

“Indeed it does. It is good for everything. Very good luck for everything.”

“But she died!”

“It was her time.” Marie gave Prinny another hug, and it spread over the child like a soothing balm. “She chose that long before she ever came to this earth. She came here so she could create
you,
and
you,
child, are destined for greatness.”