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The Garden of Abracadabra by Lisa Mason, Serial 8 #LisaMason #SFWApro

7

There was more to our last goodbye, but I don’t want to think about it right now. I need to appear upbeat and responsible, not weepy and bereaved.

I pat dry my dripping face with a freshly laundered white terry-cloth towel I find on the towel rack, silently thanking whoever left it there. Smooth peppermint balm on my lips, brush out my tangled hair. From my suitcase I pull out the dress I wore to my mother’s funeral. The slim sleeveless sheath is fitted through the waist and has a jacket to match. I slip the dress over my head, savoring the sweep of cool, black silk against my skin.

I remember the touch of Daniel’s fingertips as he zipped me up.

Now I have to twist my arms behind my back, hold the silk in my right hand, and pull up the zipper from waist to midback with my left. I transfer my left hand over my shoulder, grope for the toggle, and zip from midback to neckline. Damn. Zipping up my dress was easier with Daniel around. A lot of things were easier with Daniel, except for all the things that were not.

I clasp on the Eye of Horus. Then, recalling Esmeralda’s alarm, I clasp on my own silver Cross on a silver chain. I choose my best rings and bangles, toss the rest in my suitcase.

I step into black leather pumps with three-inch heels. Forget about pantyhose in this heat. Just bare feet.

Truth is, I hate wearing all black. I know, I know. Black is supposed to be edgy, slimming, sophisticated. In my opinion, black flatters no one. Wearing black always depressed me, even before my mother’s funeral.

Yet if wearing black means serious business, then all black it must be. Because I’m off to the very serious business of an interview for a job too good to be true.

*   *   *

My footsteps echo on the hardwood floor as I stride from the library. A second set of footsteps echoes right behind mine. I whirl around, ready to confront whatever obnoxious person has crept up on me so stealthily.

But there’s no one. No one I can see, anyway.

The hall falls utterly silent, as if the Garden of Abracadabra is holding its breath. Watching me. Testing me.

I turn back and bang my forehead on a wall. Where did that come from? I push with my palms. Yep, it’s a real live solid wood-paneled wall.

I retrace my steps, but now I can’t find the library. What me, panic? I haven’t fled clear across the country, wondering when the Horde will start hunting me, to let a little thing like a fun-house of a hall throw me off my game. I walk till I come to a crossroads of corridors, each leading off into pools of light and pools of darkness.

Which way?

I bear to the left, turn around another corner, and there it is: Number One, the door emblazoned with the occupant’s proud title:

SUPERINTENDENT

I rap smartly with my knuckles.

A quavering little voice whispers, “Who’s there?”

“I’m Abby Teller. I’m here for the job. Is it still open?”

Locks line the door jamb from floor to lintel. I hear a series of paranoid clicks as the occupant unlocks them and then the door cracks opens a handsbreadth, secured by a sturdy chain lock still attached inside.

A pinched little face peers out, his sunken darting eyes underscored by bluish circles. He looks me up and down.

“Are you a woman?”

“Last time I looked.”

“Just. . . .a woman?”

“Well! I’m going back to college, so I’m a student, too, if that’s what you mean.” I give him my best award-winning smile. “Please, sir, is the job still open? I’ve just driven clear across the country after seeing your ad on craigslist.”

“The job’s still open, okay? Three thousand people sent me email queries. No one has shown up for an interview. No one, okay?” He adds ominously, “Except you.”

“And here I am, ready to rock ‘n’ roll.”

The eyes stare a moment longer. Then the door slams shut, the chain lock rattles, and the door swings open all the way.

I step inside.

After the dim library and dimmer halls, I have to squint my eyes against the glare. On every cabinet, shelf, and table, and a handsome craftsman desk in a corner of the room, blaze candles in candelabras, funky table lamps, Welsh miners’ lanterns of tarnished brass. Floor lamps, ceiling lights, night-lights plugged into outlets, the TV with the sound turned off—every available source of photons streams light into the room.

It’s a wonder poor old Stanley hasn’t burned the place down or blown a fuse.

He scuttles across the room, dives behind the desk, and cowers there, his sunken eyes peering over the desktop.

Where the desktop isn’t taken up by a lamp or a lantern lie untidy stacks of ledgers, rat’s-nests of Post-its, ashtrays overflowing with squashed cigarette butts, an antique calculator with numeric keys like a manual typewriter set in a hunk of gray metal, a landline phone with an answering machine, a fax/printer/copier, and a vintage iMac in Bondi Blue.

After Esmeralda’s remarks, I’m expecting a little old man, bald on top, ponytail in back, a flannel shirt over a potbelly. Stanley is no such person. He isn’t old, at all. Small for a man, yes, much shorter than me, though it’s hard to tell, what with the scuttling and cowering. But young, early twenties at most. Or maybe he looks young because he’s so gaunt and pale, his expression so terrified. He’s tucked his mop of sandy hair behind his ears, which gives him a hoodlumish look.

Poor old Stanley wears a T and jeans and a garland of garlic bulbs around his neck like a stoned Hawaiian lei. What’s that about?

I sniff. The musty odor of stale garlic, staler pizza sauce, and unswept dust assaults my senses.

Housekeeping isn’t high on the list of survival skills for twenty-something single guys, but the abandoned girlie magazines, crumpled cigarette packets, and fast food cartons littering the floor strain my tolerance for household negligence. Paper plates of moldy food, stained Styrofoam cups, sweaty socks, crumpled cola cans, and a ravaged sofa salvaged from somebody’s curb contend with pizza boxes stacked up in a corner of the room from floor to ceiling. A muddy three-speed bicycle leans against the wall, motor oil dripping off the chain and the chain wheel.

Good thing Stanley didn’t keep pets.

Over each of eight sizable windows, Stanley has thumb-tacked flowery Indian bedspreads and attached garlands of garlic bulbs with hundreds of safety pins.

“Gosh. Who’s your decorator?”

He gives me a dark look. “Let’s get this over with, okay? Take a seat.” He points to a chair in front of the desk, slides himself into the chair behind it. “Rents are due on the first of the month, but they’re not late till the fifteenth.”

“Which is tomorrow.” I set my handbag and suitcase on the floor and sit, decisively crossing my legs. Other than his scrutiny at the door, Stanley has scarcely glanced at me. I don’t like that. It’s not that I want his male attention. I want him to appreciate I’m the right gal for the job. And I’m not getting that appreciation.

“That’s right.” He holds up an olive-drab bank-deposit bag. “Everyone has turned in their checks except Esmeralda Tormenta in Number Two.” He says her name in the sort of tone you’d use to talk about your persistent athlete’s foot. “And Jake, Flame, and Cuddles in Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven is also in arrears two months, plus late penalties. Which brings their total amount due”–Stanley bangs keys on the antique calculator and punches the calculate key, bullying the machine into clattering out the result on a paper tape scrolling off the back–“to six thousand, six hundred, sixty-six dollars, and sixty-six cents.” He tears off the tape, slaps it on the desk, and gives me a darker look. “If you take the job, you’ll have to go up there. You’ll have to shake them down for the money. Or else.”

“Or else?” I lean forward.

“Or else,” he whispers, “you’ll have to evict them.”

I slump back in the chair. Already the job doesn’t sound too good to be true. I can’t do this. Evict tenants?

“Don’t feel too bad,” Stanley adds. “Esmeralda is rich, okay? And Jake, Flame, and Cuddles? They’re filthy rich. Rich deadbeats who think they’re above everybody else and don’t have to pay their rent or their taxes.”

I lean forward, eager to kick rich deadbeat butt. “Okay. I can do that.”

“Lotsa luck.” He hands me a thick green folder with a smiley face on the front: SO YOU’RE MOVING IN! “All the info you need is in here. Utilities, phone, car registration. Where the bookstores are, the cafés and markets. A map of town.”

As Stanley prattles on, the names of the tenants in Number Twenty-seven echo in my eidetic memory. Aren’t they those bygone pop superstars who, in the lexicon of popular culture, were known only by their first names? Peter, Paul, and Mary. Sonny and Cher. Madonna. Sting. Pink. Shakira. Beyonce.

If I recall correctly, Jake, Flame, and Cuddles purveyed some of the most execrable music of the late nineteen-seventies, “Disco Divin’” their hit of hits.

“Wait, wait. You can’t mean Scorpio Rising.”

“That’s them.” Stanley fiddles with his garlic bulbs.

And if memory serves again, I recall that all three members of Scorpio Rising were casualties of that excessive era. Cocaine overdoses. Or was it heroin?

“I thought they were dead.”

He stares at me, the circles deepening under his eyes.

“Listen up, okay? This is just about the most important thing you’ll ever need to do in this dippy job. Take the checks to the Bank of America on Telegraph Avenue. Bring your driver’s license and my signed release, it’s in the folder. You’ll need to sign a new signature card. That’ll authorize you to endorse the checks and deposit them in Abracadabra’s account. You’ll also be authorized to disburse Abracadabra checks”—he holds up a ledger—“for maintenance, taxes, whatever. After you’ve collected and deposited the checks, the Owner will cut you a check for your salary.”

“My salary.” I’m on the edge of my seat. “Which is?”

“How much do you want?”

How much do I want? Oh, I don’t know. A million dollars a month? But I say, reasonably, “Well, let me see. The hours are flexible?”

“You do whatever you have to do whenever you want to do it, unless there’s an emergency. But you are on call, so expect tenants pestering you any time of the night or day. This phone”–he slaps the landline–“is for Abracadabra business. Use your own phone for your personal crap.”

He picks up a safety pin and toys with it, opening and closing and opening the pin.

“An apartment comes with the job? This apartment?”

“This apartment.”

“What about off-street parking? I’ve got a mint-condition 1965 Mustang I’d like to keep that way.”

“Garage Number One out back is all yours.” He looks up. Something stirs in those sunken eyes, hopeful and menacing. “So how much do you want, already?”

I propose a sum bigger than a bread box but smaller than a Beverly Hills mansion.

“Done.”

“Done?” I blink. “Don’t you want to know my qualifications?”

Stanley whips out an employment application. “Fill this out, okay? Read the terms of employment and initial them, that’s the two pages following.” He thrusts a Bic in my hand.

As I scribble my name, previous address, education, jobs held, and so on, Stanley peppers me with questions.

“Have you ever been employed as the superintendent of an historical landmark building housing sixty residential units?”

“Never in my life.”

“Are you familiar with landlord-tenant laws, supernatural crimes laws, and consecrated grounds regulations in the City of Berkeley?”

“Can’t say that I am.”

“Do you know when property taxes and witch excise taxes are due in Alameda County?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

“Do you know how to exorcise electrical gremlins, unclog sink slinkies, and banish stinging sprites?”

“No, but I can learn. I’m a good learner.” I fiddle with the Bic. Stinging sprites? What am I getting myself into?

Stanley rubs his forehead. “Do you know how to change a light bulb?”

“Yes! Yes, I do. Why, I changed a light bulb in my mother’s house just last week.”

“You’re hired.” He takes the application without a glance and whips out an employment contract. “Sign here.”

He watches my hand keenly, feverishly as I sign on the line. Which I do gladly, gleefully, gratefully. And glance up, startled at his odd expression.

Is he about to accuse me of being a southpaw? Some people are superstitious about left-handed people. Some people think we’re sinister. My first-grade teacher did.

The moment I’ve finished signing, Stanley seizes my left wrist and thrusts my hand, palm up, on the desktop. He plunges the safety pin in and out of the ball of my thumb, forces my hand over, and jams my thumb next to my signature.

Imprinting my bloody thumbprint on the contract.

Before I can scream or punch him in the snout, he releases me. He springs up from behind the desk, flings down a ring replete with keys, and screeches, “FREE, I’M FREE, I’M FREE, I’M FREE!”

He snatches a backpack from the floor, seizes and mounts the bike. He tears open the door and careens out into the darkness of the hall.

Never have I seen anyone so happy to quit his job as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra.

********

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The Garden of Abracadabra is on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords.
The Garden of Abracadabra
is also on Amazon.com in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

Copyright © 2012–2016 by Lisa Mason.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website (newly updated for 2016) for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, reviews, interviews, and blogs, adorable pet pictures, forthcoming projects, fine art and bespoke jewelry, and more!

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