The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal Read online

  We rode home in silence. Pippa fell asleep in the back of the car. Adam carried her in and tucked her into bed, still wearing her purple princess party dress.

  I stood in the hallway, wringing my hands as I tried to get up the nerve to say 'I'm sorry.'

  We made eye contact as he stepped out of Pippa's room. Adam's expression was cool and wary.

  "Good night," he said.

  He walked into his bedroom and shut the door.

  Chapter 26

  I tossed and turned until the alarm clock read 3:45 a.m. When I finally did drop off, I didn't climb up into the saddle when my dream-horse appeared, but wrapped my arms around his huge barrel chest and pressed my ear against his hide to listen to his heart. In this realm, there was never any sound, so I could not hear my dead horse's heartbeat, and yet I could feel the gentle pulse against my cheek.

  Even in the dream realm, all creatures possessed a heart which could be broken…

  "I'm sorry," I said. But it was not to Harvey I apologized.

  When the girl on the white pony finally appeared, she did not ride with her usual exuberance, but at a slow walk, her young features carrying the mark of disappointment. No words passed between us, for there was no sound in this world where only your actions mattered, she simply tugged the white pony's reins and directed the mare on a slow walk back towards the river.

  Adam sat in the place we'd had our picnic the day he'd almost kissed me, his knees pulled up against his chest as he stared forlornly across the water.

  The girl on the white pony pointed at him as if to say, 'see, look at what you've done.'

  *

  The ringing of the telephone jolted me awake. I shuffled out into the living room and picked up the receiver without bothering to notice it was nowhere near nine o'clock a.m.

  "Hello?"

  "Put Pippa on the phone."

  My bleary-eyed fuzzy-headedness instantly evaporated as I experienced the overwhelming urge to reach though the telephone and rip out Eva Bristow-Jackson's windpipe. Why was Eva calling on a Monday morning when Adam had already gone off to work?

  "Just a moment, please." I forced my voice to drip that sickening sweet obsequiousness which was how I said screw you to someone when there would be repercussions if I spoke rudely. I put down the phone and took my sweet time retrieving Pippa from her bedroom.

  "Pippa … it's your mother."

  Pippa extricated herself from the dog which slept with its furry head across her tummy and trudged into the living room with Thunderlane at her heel. Normally I would have intercepted the dog and kept him in her room because, whenever someone was on the phone, Thunderlane chose that instant to rub around your legs and whine, but Eva hated the dog, so I opened the bedroom door and let him out.

  I stood just out of sight and eavesdropped while Pippa tried to hold a conversation with her mother, a conversation that kept getting interrupted each time Pippa paused to pay attention to the dog. Good dog! Eva Jackson liked being the center of attention. Let her choke on the fact her daughter found her dog to be more interesting than her.

  Had I really told Adam last night I found him boring?

  Argh! Phantasm! Get out of my head! I rubbed my eyes, spider-lined and red from lack of sleep.

  In the living room, Pippa gave a squeal of excitement and told her mother she couldn't wait to see her. She called out to me and held out the receiver.

  "Rosie? Mommy wants to talk to you."

  Oh, great. Now I get to be bossed around by the Black Widow.

  "Hello?"

  "I need you pack Pippa's riding clothes from last summer," Eva said coldly with no introduction or pleasantries whatsoever. "And her riding boots and helmet."

  Yes, ma'am…

  "The helmet still fits her," I said. "But the boots are a size too small."

  "It'll do," Eva said. "I only have her for three days."

  "It will cause her to bunch her toes," I said, "and ride with her heels up in the stirrups instead of down. If the horse stops quickly, she'll be thrown right over its head."

  Silence.

  "You ride?"

  "Yes."

  More silence.

  "Fine. Just pack her regular shoes."

  "Is there anything else you'd like me to pack, Ms. Jackson?" I asked with a sickening sweet, high-pitched 'ditz' voice, deliberately not calling her by Adam's last name.

  "No. I'm capable of providing everything she needs."

  "Do you know what size she is?"

  "Of course I know what size she is. She's a size ten."

  My lips curved up into a wolfish grin.

  "Pippa is now a size twelve."

  Muttered curse. More silence. Eva had no doubt already gone Christmas shopping and bought the kid an entire wardrobe of designer size-10 clothing. I smirked; an evil, vindictive little smile.

  "I will be there Friday at noon," Eva said. "Have Pippa ready. I don't want to waste any time."

  She hung up before I could even acknowledge what she'd said. Argh! Bitch! I slammed the phone down on the receiver.

  The phone rang again almost as quickly as I put it down. I picked it up and answered it, my voice sharp with anger.

  "Hello!"

  "Is this Rosamond Xalbadora?"

  Oh, crap. Not Eva.

  "Yes," I said, forcing myself to not sound so bloody angry. "This is Rosie."

  "This is Alice Wu. Principal McMillan's secretary at Saint Joseph's. He asked me to call and arrange an appointment for you to come before the board for a second interview."

  I fiddled with the long, spiral cord of the old-fashioned land-line, something I'd hardly ever used in this day of mobile phone service until I'd moved out someplace where wireless reception was almost non-existent.

  'I'm not sure I'll be willing to give Rosamond up in five weeks' time.' What did that mean? Adam wanted me to stay?

  I stared down the hallway to Pippa's bedroom, where already I could hear her rummaging through her drawers searching for her riding clothes and boots. Given Adam's refusal to even consider enrolling Pippa in a school, no matter how much I wished my time here would never end, I had to face the reality that, one way or another, in five weeks I'd be right back where I'd started. Homeless. With all of my worldly goods packed into my car.

  "What day?" I asked.

  The secretary lined up a time and date a few days after New Year's weekend.

  I hung up the phone and this time, when it rang, I simply picked it up and said 'hello.'

  "Rosie?" It was Linda Hastings. I'd know her voice any day of the week.

  "Nine o'clock, eh?"

  "Am I that predictable?"

  "Yes," I said. "But a little structure is what I crave."

  Linda filled me in on the latest gossip from last night's pageant, totally unaware that Adam and I had a blowout. As I hung up, Pippa came out of her bedroom, dragging her suitcase stuffed with just about every article of clothing she owned.

  "Where are you off to, nipper?" Were I not aware that Eva was about to play the horse card, I probably would have been amused.

  "Mommy said be ready," Pippa said. "She gets really mad when I make her late."

  "It's only Monday," I said, "and that's way too many clothes. You'll only be gone for three days."

  "Mommy said we'll be moving back with her forever."

  Pippa's pale, grey eyes clouded over with worry, far too old for a ten year old kid. I got that sick feeling in my gut, the one you get sometimes that makes it feel like you just got clawed by an emu? Thunderlane whimpered; far more attuned to her every mood than I was.

  "Come here, sweetie." I held out my arms. Pippa ran into them and buried her face into shoulder. "Is that what you want?"

  "I don't know!"

  Awww… crap. Adam had warned me that whenever Eva called, Pippa often acted out of sorts. I led her into the living room and sat her down onto the couch. Pippa curled up next to me, about as close as a tall, slender ten-year-old could come to crawling into my lap. />
  "So what has you so upset, little nipper?"

  "Daddy's been so sad since Grandma died," Pippa said. "If I go with Mommy for Christmas, Daddy will be here all alone!"

  "It's not your job to worry about your daddy," I said. "I'll be here, and so will Mrs. Hastings and Thunderlane. We'll make sure your daddy doesn't get too lonely."

  Pippa snuggled closer.

  "You promise?"

  "Yes."

  Pippa sighed.

  "The fairy queen said Daddy would love you."

  I stiffened. The way Pippa spoke about her imaginary friends, it sounded as if they were real. I remembered Adam's paranoia about the media. It wouldn't take much for a private investigator working for her mother to make up some tall tale to pump a little girl for information.

  "And where does this fairy queen live?"

  "I usually see her by the river," Pippa said. "Although sometimes, if I'm really sad, she'll come find me wherever I am."

  "What do you usually talk about?"

  "Oh, we never talk." Pippa twirled her pigtail. "She just … is. And I always understand what she means."

  I got that surreal feeling you get sometimes, like when you walk into a haunted house at a carnival. You know it isn't real, but your imagination wants to believe, so when the man in the ape suit jumps out of the shadows and shouts 'boo!' you jump anyways and squeal.

  "Well the next time you speak to this fairy queen," I said, "come and tell me right away. Okay? I've got a few questions I'd like to ask her."

  "Okay." Pippa began to suck her thumb.

  I didn't chastise her. So … this must be the behavioral regression Adam had mentioned. To a bunch of rich mean girls, spoiled beyond belief and far too mature for their age, Pippa would make an easy target. The past few weeks, however, she'd come out of her shell and made a few friends. Even though Adam was ticked off at me right now, I had to somehow make him understand.

  In the meantime…

  "Do you know what I was wondering?" I asked.

  "What, Rosie?"

  "What'd your Grandma do around here for a Christmas tree?"

  "I don't know," Pippa said. She twirled her pigtail. "Grandpa didn't like us, so we never visited here at Christmastime."

  I let out a silent curse for Adam's stubborn, pig-headed father. The next time I ran across the man in that world between, why … I'd …

  "Does your grandmother have an artificial Christmas tree?" I asked. "Or even just a box of decorations?"

  "I think there's one in the storage room," Pippa said. "Mommy always got a real one, but I saw a big box with a Christmas tree on it. Daddy promised me he'd get a real tree too, but then Mommy said she wanted me to come for Christmas, so I think Daddy doesn't want to put one up just for himself."

  "Well I'll tell you what, nipper," I said. "As soon as we get back from your library volunteer job with Sarah Colbert, why don't you and I go dig out that old Christmas tree? And then we'll decorate it and surprise Daddy when he comes home."

  With an enthusiastic cry, Pippa bounded up and dragged me down the hall to the storage room.

  Chapter 27

  The difference between Christmas in the Land of Oz and the northern hemisphere is up north, the Christmas lights twinkle through your picture window like a beacon of hope to a tired person coming home. In Oz, however, Christmas comes just after the summer solstice, so when Adam's tires crunched up the driveway, the sun was still so bright it made the lights all but invisible.

  I plugged the Christmas lights in anyway. It made Pippa happy, and that's what the dusty expedition through her grandmother's icky spider closet had been all about. She ran out to greet him while I busied myself in the kitchen. The scent of chicken legs roasting out on the barbie filled the air. I tossed a salad and added butter to a bowl of rice.

  I kept my nose into my dinner preparations as I heard Adam exclaim what a nice surprise it was to come home and find the house decorated. There were the usual hand-made ornaments, including ones bearing Adam's name in shaky, block letters as well as those made by his deceased twin brother. Several ornaments we'd found ripped or broken in the box. I'd set them aside, determined to glue them back together.

  Adam strode into the kitchen with Pippa at his heels.

  "G'day."

  I glanced up from the salad I was chopping, hoping to see the tension between us had evaporated, but I still owed Adam Bristow an apology.

  "Adam."

  He hesitated, a plethora of emotions dancing across his face, and then pointed towards the back screen door.

  "Are we eating outside this evening?"

  "It's all set," I said. "If you turn the chicken so it doesn't burn, it will help me get the rest of this stuff outside."

  "Right-o," he said, and strolled out the kitchen door.

  Pippa carried out a stack of napkins and the pitcher of lemonade she'd helped me make earlier, the powdered stuff as I had no patience for squeezing lemons. The scent of grilling chicken filled the air with meaty goodness as Adam lifted the lid and began to do that 'guy thing' where men who otherwise can't cook to save their lives turn the charring of raw meat into an art form. I threw a handful of fresh chopped parsley and squeezed some lemon into the rice, and then juggled the two bowls as I carried them outside and set them on the table.

  We sat down to eat, a silent man, a silent woman, and a very talkative and excited little girl. We chewed in silence, neither one of us meeting the other's gaze. While my nose whispered the food smelled delicious, on my tongue, I might as well have been eating sawdust. Only Pippa's excitement made it bearable. I noticed the way Adam's features grew apprehensive when Pippa told him her mother said to pack her riding gear.

  I didn't say a word. Not … one … single … word. Let him figure out where Eva's manipulations were headed. I swallowed the last of my chicken in silence. For a man so confident in every other realm, why did Adam refuse to put his conniving ex-wife back into her place?

  I gathered up the dishes to carry back into the house. All three of us washed and dried and put the dishes back into the cupboard, Pippa chattering, Adam and I both silent. When we were done, he followed Pippa out into the living room to sit underneath the Christmas tree, which had finally begun to look brighter now that the sun had finally set. I excused myself and went to take my shower. When I was done, I went into my bedroom, shut the door and sat down upon my bed. A dead, empty feeling sat heavily in my chest. I picked up the yarn I'd found in the storage closed and resumed crocheting colorful scrap-yarn granny squares to match a pile which Adam's mother had started and never made into anything.

  I heard Adam tuck Pippa into bed. This time had always been his time with her, even, I suspected, when he'd still been with his wife. At last the house grew silent. I heard the sound of running water from the shower, and then more silence, and then there was a knock upon my door.

  "Come in," I said.

  Adam peeked in, his expression wary. His short, golden hair had turned chestnut from his shower, and he'd changed into the shorts and shirt he habitually wore to bed.

  "Can we talk?"

  If he hadn't been my boss, I might have made some snappy comeback about isn't that the girl's line when the guy is in big trouble?

  "Sure," I said.

  Adam herded me into the living room like a recalcitrant heifer. I sat down on the couch and waited while he settled into his orange king chair. He'd left the Christmas lights on, and the entire room twinkled in merry colors that contrasted sharply with my dark mood. There was no offer of beer tonight, nor did he have one in his own hands.

  I waited. The worst thing he could do was fire me and hire somebody else. The way things had been going lately, part of me hoped that was exactly what was about to happen.

  Adam grimaced.

  "I'm not good at this kind of thing," Adam said at last. "I married the first woman I ever really got involved with, and now that she's gone, I'm realizing I never had a clue."

  I wasn't sure what Adam was
getting at, but I gave him a small, sympathetic grimace, just to let him know I'd heard him. The room grew silent, as if he wished for me to speak. I finally said it.

  "Adam … you hired me to come out here for twelve weeks to help you take care of Pippa. When that ends, I'll be out of a job. Maybe in Eva Jackson's world that's no big deal … you just call daddy and everything will be alright. But in my world it means a girl like me ends up packing all of her worldly belongings into her car and couch-surfing."

  "I offered you a bonus at the end of the summer," Adam said.

  "And that will help," I said. "But it's only enough to put down a first, last and security deposit on a decent flat. That money won't last long unless I find a job right away, and with most teaching jobs running from January to December, it means I'll have missed my window for this school year and have to settle for something not in my field. So I'm not being a mercenary bitch when I say I need to make plans for my future now. This job has an expiration date, and when it's done, I need to move onto something else."

  Adam ran his fingers through his golden-brown hair.

  "I guess I've been moving in Maynor Jackson's world for so long that I've forgotten what it's like for the other 99%."

  I remained silent rather than say, 'ya think?'

  There was an awkward silence, and then Adam gestured at the Christmas tree and other decorations we'd set up around the house.

  "That was very thoughtful of you," Adam said. "Thank you."

  "I didn't do it for you," I said. "I did it for Pippa."

  One golden eyebrow rose in hurt.

  "But Pippa will be spending Christmas with her mother."

  "Pippa was real upset after her mother called this morning," I said. "She's worried about you spending Christmas alone."

  A peculiar expression crossed Adam's chiseled features. Without a word, he got up and stalked into the kitchen to get his habitual beer. I heard two bottle caps get twisted off, and then he strode in and put one of them on the coffee table in front of me. He settled back into his easy chair and took a sip.