Fanatic and Dramatic

“Hey! Do you have any books on… nature?” I ask, totally saving face and not just making up words in order to fill the silence. Darian is still behind me, Keigan looks slightly bemused, and this random woman is still staring at me like I’m an alien. I wish I was an alien; then at least I could get beamed up and teleported elsewhere.

“Yeah, we do,” Keigan tells me with a slanted smile. He’s holding an armful of books and not moving, opting to instead glance past me and share some kind of look with Darian.

“You’re Masie Clements.” It’s the woman speaking. She’s a short white woman with two notable features: black cat-eye glasses and a thick orange braid that reaches almost down to her waist. She’s got two hands wrapped around the straps of her tote bag, which is currently weighing down her left side, as it is filled with books.

I do not know this woman, or how she would know me. I narrow my eyes at Keigan, as this is clearly his fault. “Yes, I am,” I tell the woman, straightening up to my full height (which includes the platform shoes, obviously) and flipping my hair over one shoulder.

Keigan stifles a laugh, but the woman doesn’t notice. Her face splits into a grin, her eyes widening behind her glasses, making them look larger-than-life. “Oh! I recognized you! From–from The Lakeside Haunt! I’ve read it at least twice cover-to-cover. I really am a huge fan.” She’s almost on the verge of trembling.

It’s been so long that I’ve encountered a fan, let alone someone who recognized me from either my author’s photo or the internet, that I don’t immediately say anything. “Thanks,” I finally manage.

“Are you writing something else? Am I allowed to ask that? It’s just–well, The Lakeside Haunt reminded me so much of here, of Windthrow Point… Are you here on research?” I snort a little, accidentally, but before I can say a word she adds, “Oh, and hello Darian, I didn’t mean to ignore you.” Then she lifts a hand and points between us. “Wait, is this…? Oh! Oh, how wonderful!”

I put my hands out in front of me in the universal ‘hold on’ pose. “No, no, we’re not…” Not anything.

“Sorry Leanne,” comes Darian’s voice from behind me.

The woman, called Leanne, but I’m sure I’ll forget that later, presses her mouth into a small smile. I know that smile from my mother's friends; it means they're taking that piece of gossip as fact and can't wait to tell Betty or Charlene or whoever else. “Of course. I didn’t see anything at all. But if there were to be a film version of The Lakeside Haunt, I would film it here. Most definitely.”

Hm. I actually feel kind of like an idiot that I hadn’t thought of that first. I raise a brow and look over my shoulder at Darian to say ‘That’s not a bad idea’, but he's just shaking his head. When I look back at Leanne she’s smiling so wide it looks like it hurts.

Keigan, who has set his books down on a nearby decorative barrel and is now leaning photogenically against a shelf in his oversized green flannel like a page from a hot librarians calendar, pipes up. “You know Masie is actually going to help us with the play for the Windthrow Fête?”

“Really? Oh, fabulous!” Lynn looks about to burst. “You’re such an angel.” Keigan’s grinning ear-to-ear. I give the woman a smile, thinking about the plane ticket I was about to book. Am going to book. It’s not like this is going to change my mind.

“Are you going to be here until the--” Lynn’s excited chatter is cut off by my phone playing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”, which is a setting that Jamie changed on my phone a few months ago and I haven’t changed back yet. I should.

“Sorry,” I mouth, and they move out of the way as I pick up the call. I’m just exiting the bookshop--and yeah, it is a bit crisp outside--when my mother starts speaking.

“Masie. Darling. You missed my call.”

“Yeah, sorry, I had--”

“Graham, hold the phone closer, I can barely hear her. What’s that?”

I tighten my grip on my phone. “I’m kind of busy, Mom.” There’s silence on the other end. It stretches. A breeze goes by and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Mom?”

Suddenly there’s soft crying, and then it’s louder. “You’ve got to come, I--” There’s a choked sob.

I’d been staring at the provincial landscape ahead of me--a parked car, the road, a few buildings across the way--but now my vision is narrowing, like the shadows have grown. “What?” I'd like to think this is just her being dramatic, but it isn’t like Mom to ease into tears like this, usually it's much more showy.

There’s more crying, and I can barely feel the ground underneath my feet. It’s Rachael. It has to be Rachael. Dead? Worse? What’s worse than dead?

“Hi Masie.” It’s Graham’s voice on the line now, sounding hesitant.

“Tell me what’s happening,” I demand. Maybe something else happened, like her house burned down. Or my house burned down. Arson? Do I have enemies that would arson my house? Definitely.

“Helene wants me to tell you--what?--she says it’s an emergency.”

“I heard that," I snap. "But what is?” Someone’s got to be dead. A human, not a cat this time. We don’t have any living relatives, other than people on my father’s side that I’d never met, including a half-sibling. All people my mother would not care about. Maybe she killed someone?

“She’s… not feeling well.” There’s a long silence, with some noises I can’t distinguish. “She’s in the hospital?” Graham sounds unsure of himself.

I close my eyes and fight not to yell. “Is she or is she not in the hospital? This should not be difficult.” Cancer, it’s got to be cancer. I never should have left California.

“Just tell her--!” My mother’s voice, shouting from the background now, “--in case anything happens, that I’m so proud of all the things she’s achieved! Goodbye, darling!” Graham says something else, there’s more noise, and then the phone goes dead.

Just the buzzing in my head left.

“Fuck.”

I jog in the direction of the Honorary Inn. “Fuck!” I shout at no one.

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(next chapter)

pt 19: https://www.theprose.com/post/786954/glass-cages

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(previous chapter)

pt 17: https://www.theprose.com/post/783495/risque-discoveries