The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster Page 3

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  A Door

  Annie glanced at the comic book on the ottoman, then turned and smiled at Christian, struck as always by his physical contradictions.

  Indeed, it was the contrary nature of his eyes that first caught her attention. She’d been taking her morning walk through Dolores Park and was making for her favorite bench, only to discover that it was occupied by a young man reading a book. She’d found the situation annoying— that is, until the moment he met her gaze. His eyes— deep, dark, and blue, with lush lashes under heavy brows— clearly told a story that she found herself wanting to hear, yet they sat on such a boyish face.

  “Good morning,” she’d said.

  “Good m- m- mmmmmorning,” he’d replied, peering bashfully above the pages.

  He was a stutterer. And socially awkward. She adored him instantly and invited herself to sit down.

  They’d talked through the morning. While he’d stuttered quite a bit, his face locked in an expression of intense concentration as he struggled through the simplest of sentences, and spoke timidly, as if every word were an apology, Annie had found him irresistible and did something quite out of character. She invited him to tea the very next day. And on the same day the next week. And the next.

  It was slow going at first, their afternoon teas, but by the third visit, his stutter had practically ceased altogether, though he maintained a habit of speaking deliberately as they talked sometimes into the wee hours.

  Nothing was too sacred or too personal, and Annie found that Christian had a way of smiling with a certain sadness at the center of his eyes while telling heartbreaking stories of the bullying he’d suffered growing up in Texas.

  And then, of course, there was the accident. What could be said about that? It had changed everything, though he actually couldn’t tell her much about it. A head trauma had erased great chunks of his memory, willy-nilly, but she’d learned more than she’d cared to when her curiosity got the better of her one day. It nearly broke her heart to look at the photograph she’d found on microfiche at the library—Christian being lifted onto a gurney in the foreground, limp as a forgotten saint, his arm dangling over its side, and in the distance behind him, a spray of water arcing from a fireman’s hose onto the blaze that had charred the light post around which his car was wrapped like taffy. The article was titled “Miracle on Folsom Street” because no one could explain how he’d been found thirty feet from the site of the crash, unconscious on the sidewalk. By all rights, he should have been dead.

  The constant bullying had weakened him, left him uncertain, while the accident had shackled him with recurring hallucinations—his word, not hers—and, of all things…a stutter.

  She’d asked him once if he’d ever considered the possibility that his hallucinations were something more, but quickly backpedaled when she saw how the word visions affected him.

  The sum total of this—his stories, his past—made her forget the thousand little hurts of her childhood but often left her weeping for his long after he’d gone home and she’d crawled into bed to stare at the ceiling.

  A year after their first meeting, they were still taking tea every Wednesday at 4:00 p.m., and in that time, Christian had come to be very dear to Annie.

  He pulled up the ottoman partnered to a wicker chair, plopped himself down, and waited patiently for her to explain herself.

  Sliding her legs over the side of the chaise, Annie leaned toward him, her hands gripping the parchment. Standing abruptly, she placed her hands on her hips. “How’s your mood?” she asked diplomatically.

  Christian wasn’t the only person who could speak in code. The appropriate translation of her question would have been “Have you witnessed any hallucinations today, and, if so, how many?”

  He held up two fingers, as his lips curled into a sort of sidewise S tucked into the corner of his mouth, Christian’s version of an eye roll, and one that couldn’t help but tickle Annie every time he produced it.

  “You okay?” she asked, fighting a twitch in the corner of her own.

  When he nodded, she glanced toward the back, all business once again. “Good, because I need to show you something, and it might be a bit of a shocker.”

  He blinked.

  Annie nodded at his confusion and led him through the solarium and to the kitchen. Casting a glance at the back door as if it had somehow betrayed her, Annie walked over and threw it open.

  Christian wasn’t looking at the door, however. He was watching her as he whispered, “Annie, it’s raining outside.”

  She smiled. “Not where we’re going,” she said and took his hand, leading him into the back.

  Thirty minutes later, she led him again to the living room sofa and, when he was seated, disappeared into the kitchen. “This will help settle your nerves,” she said, returning with a cup of tea. To his surprise, she carefully set a Xanax on the saucer next to it.

  He glanced from the pill to Annie, quickly shook his head, and stared at the coffee table where the broken pieces of china— casualties of her early-morning adventure—were resting. After a moment, he lifted his cup. It rattled noticeably against the saucer, and despite the care with which he brought it to his lips, tea sloshed onto his face. He reached for a napkin while appraising Annie from under his brow. She seemed strangely unruffled by the experience, not to mention the fact that her pride and joy, her collection of china, had acquired its first blemish.

  When he’d set the cup and napkin aside, Annie handed him the piece of parchment. As he started to unfold it, she put her hand over his. “It’s from my new neighbor,” she said.

  Christian frowned, momentarily confused by her comment. Then his eyes lit with alarm, and he set the letter on the coffee table, shaking his head.

  Annie nodded, then gestured to the letter. “Go on,” she said.

  He glanced at it with renewed skittishness, the look on his face suggesting that he expected the thing to explode at any minute— scattering shards of insanity all over the living room. Reluctantly, he picked it up and started reading. When he was done, Christian put the letter on the table, covered it with one hand, and reached for his teacup.

  Annie watched him drain it. “Well?” she said.

  “It’s a j-j-j…jjj—” His shoulders slumped. “Joke,” he said, grimacing.

  Annie wasn’t too surprised that Christian had stammered. Acute stress could be a trigger, and this situation certainly qualified. “No, I think not,” she said.

  “Annie,” he said, drawing her name out. He pointed to the header, then his fingers began to flutter as his hand danced in the air, a sure sign he was going to struggle for words. “It’s d-da-dated eighteen ninety-five, for C-Christ’s sake.”

  “And you just walked through a wheat field in the middle of San Francisco.” She watched in wry amusement as Christian considered her comment and attempted the tricky mental adjustments that would reconcile the last half hour with his prior lifetime of experience.

  An incredulous chirp broke from his throat. “Eighteen ninety-five,” he said after taking a few breaths. Repeating the number slowly, he visibly relaxed and looked at Annie in wonder. Chuckling, he added, “If Miss Grundy has lived there for f-fuhforty-six years, then that cabin’s been in your backyard since …” His voice trailed off as he did the math in his head.“Eighteen forty-nine.”

  He looked at the ceiling, a bemused smile plastered on his face. But it didn’t last long, slowly melting to a frown. Tensing again, he rounded on Annie. “Aren’t you the least bit”—he tapped the table a few times, a trick he’d learned to avoid stuttering—“alarmed… by the fact that you’re holding a century-old letter, and it’s written to you personally?”

  Annie shrugged. “I don’t see why I should be. The sky hasn’t fallen.”

  Christian reached for the teacup, grunting, then snatched his hand away as he was hit by another thought. “Or maybe this letter was written yesterday. If that’s the case, you just rec
eived a correspondence”—he looked up, meeting her eyes before finishing his thought—“from a ghost.” He stood up and began to work up a real head of steam as he paced, all traces of the stutter gone. “This is creepy. I mean, really creepy. Ghosts and time warps. Like something right out of—”

  “I’m not sure you’re being helpful, dear,” Annie said quietly.

  He paused with his mouth lodged open to find her staring with a slight arch to her brow. There was a smile hiding behind the line of her mouth—just a suggestion, an upward curve at the corners— that calmed him right down again. That was the way their relationship worked. She was the rock while he was the breeze.

  “Well, it is creepy,” he said under his breath before dropping onto the sofa with a grunt. “And what about her not-too-subtle threat?” he asked.

  “Miss Grundy’s just a little hot under the collar,” Annie said, seemingly unconcerned. “I suppose I would be too, if someone was trespassing on my land.”

  “She is trespassing.” Christian paused, wrinkling his brow. “Sort of.”

  “Trespass or not, she just lost her back forty while I’ve added a wheat field. I’d say I’m getting the better end of the deal.”

  Christian shook his head, marveling at her unflappability. “Okay, let me think,” he said, moving on. “You don’t like the ghost theory then.”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, was this the first…” Christian broke from his train of thought. “I mean, when did you first find Kansas in your garden?” Struck by the strangeness of the question, he blinked, then clasped both hands over his head, giggling.

  “This morning.” She kicked his foot. “And it isn’t proper to titter like that in polite company,” she added.

  “How would you know? I’m the only company you keep.” He threw himself back onto the sofa, laughing even harder as she aimed another kick in his direction. “What’s different then?” he asked, hanging his arm limply over the armrest. “How about that—”

  “Door!” Annie finished Christian’s sentence for him, though he’d planned to use the word monstrosity. “Of course,” she added, and darted to the kitchen, leaving him to collect the teacups and follow.

  Annie was staring at the back door as Christian entered the kitchen. She turned, beaming from ear to ear as he leaned against a counter to give the door a more thorough looking over. It was a heavy, menacing thing, painted Radio-Flyer-red with intricate carvings, like characters from some ancient alphabet running along its perimeter. Carved boldly in the center were planets, constellations, and a variety of astrological symbols. It was, frankly speaking, the ugliest thing he’d laid eyes on in a long time.

  “Hideous, don’t you think?”she said, mercifully saving him from telling a white lie, as she ran her hand reverently over a series of runes. “God, I love it.” She gave the door a quick pat, then strode to a buffet-style cabinet and started to rummage through a stack of papers on one of its shelves. “I had it installed yesterday. Bought it at that quaint little antique shop on California Street.” She bit her thumb, looking around. “Now where did I put the receipt?”

  “In the ‘stupid things I buy without thinking’ drawer?” Christian parked himself on a bench in the built-in kitchen nook and set the teacups on the table. “Just trying to help,” he added, grinning when she gave him a look that dropped the room temperature a degree or two.

  Annie turned back to the buffet and, glancing sideways at him, slowly opened the center drawer. “Ah.” Holding up a business card with The Antiquarian written across the top, she decided to ignore his self-satisfied air and said, “Now that’s interesting.” She leaned back against the buffet. “The salesperson gave me quite a line. What was his name?” She tapped the card against her lips. “Adam. He said the door had been in the store’s possession forever, and despite having been sold on three separate occasions, it kept finding its way back like a bad penny. There was also some rumor of a curse.” She paused, frowning. “It was all so mysterious, and the door was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help myself. I bought the thing on the spot.”

  Christian began running a finger along a line of wood grain of the table as Annie started digging through drawers again. In a sure sign he’d recovered from his earlier shock—Christian was blessed with a short attention span—he said offhandedly, “Oh, before I forget, I just saw ‘the face’ again as I was crossing Church Street.”

  “That’s nice, dear,” Annie mumbled. She continued to flip through a pile of papers until Christian’s comment sank in. She looked up. “What face? The one from your past?”

  He brought the empty cup to his lips, frowning. “The one that might be from my past,” he clarified.

  “This could be good,” she said, closing the drawer. “Perhaps he’s a missing half brother. Or, better yet, an archenemy with a score to settle.”

  “There’s something… I don’t know.” His eyes flicked in her direction before refocusing on the cup. “Maybe? I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Her task forgotten for the moment, Annie dropped onto the bench across from Christian. He was peering beneath the teacup for the manufacturer’s stamp, but she wasn’t fooled. She poked him on the chest in a very deliberate manner. “You can’t just drop that on me and clam up. Spill the beans.”

  “I just saw him crossing Church and Twentieth on my way here.” He lowered the cup. “It happened pretty fast. And I had my face in a book, as usual—”

  Annie smacked him lightly across the back of the head, having witnessed him flirt with disaster time and again as a result of that unfortunate habit. He continued without batting an eye, adding, “I looked up and there he was.”

  “What does he look like?” she asked.

  “Sorry?”

  “What does he look like, Christian?”

  “Kind of comical, actually. He was wearing a T-shirt under an orange flannel button-down and brown corduroys like some weird seventies throwback.”

  “Don’t be dull, dear. Him! What does he look like?” Annie smelled a rat. This was the third time Christian had seen the face, and he was being a bit dodgy about the entire matter. Christian wasn’t dodgy. So something was up.

  “I don’t know,” he said vaguely. “Just a face. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m supposed to know him. Or that he knows me.”

  “Christian.”

  “Hmmm?”

  Annie lifted her cup, raising an eyebrow. “I’m not kidding,” she said, snaking the cup across the table to hover over his trousers.

  Well, actually, she was—sort of. Even so, Christian cocked his head with a “you wouldn’t dare” expression. Properly provoked, she leaned across the table, smiling coyly.

  “All right, all right!” He pressed himself to the back of the bench, grinning. “Let me think.” His eyes lost focus as he said, “Medium height. Trim. Blond hair cut short and turning to silver on the sideburns. Light blue eyes, maybe? Early thirties. I think he had a goatee. Umm…that’s about it.”

  Annie leaned forward, saying, “That’s it?” She gave Christian a measured stare as he shifted awkwardly in the chair, then sat back with a nod.

  What an eventful day, she thought as delight began to play around her eyes. I break my teacup, first in the annals of my life. I find roses and a wheat field in my backyard. There is a cabin where the corner of Dolores and Twentieth, by all rights, should be. I receive a mysterious letter from an even more mysterious neighbor. And, to put the icing on the cake, my Christian might have a mystery of his own.

  A most topsy-turvy, yet satisfying day, all in all.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Prudence Travesty’s Vintage Clothier

  May 20, 1995

  Haight-Ashbury is the one place where the only people to stand out are those who try not to. It is a crossroads where stragglers, clinging desperately to the Summer of Love’s memory, rub elbows with their spiritual heirs— the goths, neo- goths, metalheads, hip-hop bandits, and drag divas— and is w
rapped up in a psychedelic explosion of flower power, hemp, DayGlo retailers, and one lone woman walking down the block in cerise sateen.

  Annie stepped out of the Green Grocer loaded with organic produce and promptly collided into another woman. They knelt, echoing apologies while scrambling for scattered avocadoes and butterscotch scones. Once her bag was refilled, Annie broke away with a nod and was strolling past the display window at Prudence Travesty’s Vintage Clothier when an insistent tapping caught her attention. Looking up, she saw a petite older woman, turned out in Chanel, standing in the window and holding a gown up for her inspection.

  Annie ogled the garment in obvious fascination and rushed into the store. “Mrs. Weatherall, what do we have here?” she asked as she hurried to place the groceries on the sales counter.

  Eyeing Annie over her reading glasses, Mrs. Weatherall draped the gown across the counter and said in a clipped, New York baritone that sounded like she’d lit up her fair share of Virginia Slims, “You almost walked right by.”

  “The insolence.” Annie whisked the gown from the counter to stroke the fabric. If she were a cat, she’d have purred. “Have you been saving it for me?”

  Mrs. Weatherall nodded. “I hated to think that this one should end up at a costume party,” she said. “And what was going on out there?” She nodded in the direction of the grocery store.

  Annie held the dress against her torso and admired herself in the mirror before turning to face Mrs. Weatherall. Her expression reflected something between embarrassment and chagrin and sat strangely on her face. “A chance meeting,” she said. “She bought the house three doors down.”

  “Has she moved in then?”

  “Two years ago.” Annie’s face reddened slightly before she turned back to her reflection.