3 Straight by the Rules Read online

  Once again, Tommy’s spiritual mumbo jumbo confused me. “Come again?”

  “She’s a grade-A hoarder.” His voice took on an edge. “She’s got crap piled up to the ceiling in every room of the house. You ever see those people on TV? Well, they’re nothing compared to her.”

  I’d met Tommy’s mother, Doris, a few times when he’d been in the hospital. She was a stern, furtive woman who refused to talk to anyone. “How about if I hire someone to throw out the trash?” I asked. “Like an army with a battalion of Dumpsters?”

  He shook his head. “No. My sister, dad, and I tried for years to clean things up, but it never worked. We’d throw stuff out, and she’d just haul it back in. I need a more permanent solution.” He continued to anxiously tug on the spacer. “Like having you convince her to stop being a hoarder…”

  I gaped at him.

  “You’ve got a demon in you, right? And that demon is good at convincing people to do stuff, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

  “Why not? It would be for a good cause.”

  “I know, but my succubus is a demon. She lives to do evil, not good.”

  “I wouldn’t ask unless I was desperate.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the ground. “I forgot that life can be so fucking hard! I know that I was only dead for a few minutes, but it was long enough for me to enjoy freedom from this damned mess on Earth. ”

  Soon after I’d rescued him from the otherworld, Tommy had told me that he had conversed with God. At the time, he’d been radiant, but over the past few weeks, his shine had dulled.

  “God didn’t explain everything to me, but he told me a lot,” Tommy said. “And for once, I had some perspective and understood the way things worked together here.” Tears stood in his eyes. “But now I can’t remember any of it! It’s like I’m lost in this maze and every turn I take leads me to another dead end. I can’t get out!” He began rubbing his chest again.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “You act like you’re suffering from heartburn.” Or, Devil forbid, a heart attack.

  He dropped his hand. “I’m fine. But, please, at least think about using your demon, okay?”

  As much as I hated the idea, I had to admit it made sense. I was great at getting people to do things, so maybe tempting Doris to clean up would work. Plus, I wanted Tommy off that stupid couch and away from Sam, the big, red-haired devil. “Okay, I’ll think about it,” I promised.

  “Great. Thank you.” Some of the tension went out of his face. “And tell Jasmine I’m sorry about arguing last night, okay? It’s just…” He shrugged, but his right hand went back to rubbing his chest, and his eyes once more grew troubled.

  Ariel and I arrived back at the flat just as Jasmine was leaving. She admired Ariel’s new earrings, then said, “Did you see Tommy?” When I nodded, she said, “And?”

  “He looks terrible, and he says he’s sorry for fighting with you.”

  She smiled.

  “Also, he wants to move in with his mother.”

  Jasmine’s mouth drew down in disgust. “He can’t be serious! That place is filthy. He’ll get an infection if he lives there, I just know it.”

  “I told him I would rent an apartment for him.” I hoped Jasmine would like the idea better than Tommy had.

  She shook her head. “No. I want to be the one who takes care of him.” Her eyes brightened. “The second job interview went pretty good. The manager said I was a top candidate. They’ll let me know soon.”

  I hugged her. “That’s terrific!”

  She nodded. “And once I get the job, I can get my own place. Then you can finally live by yourself, and maybe find a Mr. Right of your own. By the way, how is that dating service working out?” From her overly casual tone, she’d obviously been dying to ask me the question for a while.

  Over the years, my father had drilled into my head that one must never embarrass someone who has given you a gift. I carefully said, “I’m wondering what information you put into my profile. I seem to be attracting a certain class of men.” When Jas cocked her head, puzzled, I added, “A very dominating type of man.”

  “Well, you’re not exactly a party girl, so I said you were quiet and didn’t like to take control. I can’t remember the exact word I used.”

  “Demure?”

  She shook her head.

  “Docile?”

  “No.”

  I swallowed. “Submissive?”

  “That’s the one!”

  I grit my teeth. “I really need to change that, Jas.”

  “No problem. I’d help you now, but I’ve got a Zumba class in twenty minutes.” She picked up her duffel bag and slung it over her shoulder. “So you’re liking it? The dating service, I mean?”

  She was so eager to please me that I couldn’t spoil it. “It’s interesting. Where did you hear about the website?”

  “My friend, Chrissie.”

  The needle on my worry-meter zipped from ‘mild concern’ to ‘severe apprehension’. “Would this be the same Chrissie who tried to persuade you to take off your bikini top during spring break so you could be on the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ video?”

  Jas’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  Jasmine put her hands on her hips. “For your information, Chrissie is a really great person. And it wasn’t ‘Girls Gone Wild’, it was ‘Girls Gone Crazy volume II: Spring Break Booyah – Deluxe Collectors’ Edition’. Besides, Chrissie only showed off a butt cheek and one nipple. Nothing else.”

  I couldn’t decide whether to shake some sense into her or laugh. Before I could do either, my phone rang. It was my dad.

  “I’d like to take you to dinner tonight if you’re free,” he said. “To the Roma. Just the two of us.”

  My father and I had celebrated our birthdays at the Roma Café every year until I went off to college. Then our birthday dinner, like so many other traditions we’d shared, had fallen to the side.

  “I’d love to,” I said. “I’m sure Jas will watch Ariel for me.”

  “Good. And, Lil, I’m very sorry for how I behaved yesterday.”

  The tension in my chest eased. I had known, of course, that my dad would eventually feel terrible about what he’d said. But like the words ‘I love you’, it’s important to hear ‘I’m sorry’ spoken out loud as well.

  I went downstairs to collect my mail. Mixed in with the fliers and bills was a postcard with a picture of a French Poodle wearing a striped t-shirt and a beret. At the sight of my daughter’s blocky third-grade writing, my heart clenched. “Bonjour, Mama! Papa and I are going to see the moaning Lisa today. Love Grace.” My daughter would be returning home in less than a week, but those remaining days seemed like a lifetime.

  My ex-husband had added a note underneath Grace’s. It said, “Everything’s fine, Lil. Stop worrying.” Sure. Easy for him to say.

  The door to the first-floor flat opened, but before I could make my escape, Corrine yanked me into her apartment.

  Corrine must have just come home from work, for she wore scrubs with rainbows printed on them. She urged me to sit on a couch so full of needlepoint pillows there was hardly room for me and handed me a tiny gift bag. “Happy birthday! I know I’m a little late, but better late than never.”

  I smiled, flattered she’d remembered. I hoped this meant our friendship was back on track. But when I opened the present, my thank you died on my lips. Inside were several, small foil packets with pictures of neon-pink lips and the words: AmaZing Apricot HotGel© Get the Licks You Deserve. Cringing, I shoved the packets back into the bag.

  Corrine’s face glowed with excitement. “Those are from the Naughty Nancy Taste Sensation line. You’re going to love them!” She thrust a catalog at me. “And when you see the other products we offer, I just know you’re going to want to host a party!”

  A dull headache formed between my eyes. The catalogue made it worse. There were pages and page
s of body oils, and pink fur-trimmed handcuffs, and edible underwear, and ridiculous costumes: French maid, school girl, dominatrix. All of this was portrayed as silly and fun, and but to me, it was tawdry at best, and depressing at worst.

  “So…would you like to host a party?”

  “Definitely not.” I got up and went to the door. Only my father’s incessant etiquette training made me take Corrine’s dreadful gift. However, I left the catalog on the coffee table.

  Chapter Nine

  Before I tempted Tommy’s mother out of her hoarding problem, I needed to check out the situation. Maybe Tommy had exaggerated about the condition of her house. Perhaps with a little elbow grease and a really big Dumpster, I could get the place livable without having to unleash my inner she-devil. It was worth a try.

  When Jas returned from the gym, I grabbed a basket of dirty clothes and told her I was heading to the basement to do laundry. Then I entered the otherworld doorway next to the dryer.

  I found Doris’s house easily enough, but getting inside proved to be a problem. The first doorway I tried had been blocked with so much junk that it only opened a few inches. The same thing went for the second, third, and fourth doors. The fifth, sixth, and seventh ones wouldn’t open at all. I had never known one building to have so many otherworld entrances. There were twenty-six altogether. All but two of them were obscured with trash.

  The first unblocked door opened onto a tiny space inside the fortress of garbage where Doris lay on a blanket printed with faded, blue flowers. She looked nothing like her son. It wasn’t just the fact that she had a head of iron gray curls whereas he was bald. It was the expression of mistrust in her small eyes and the hard set of her pale lips. Tommy greeted the world with a smile whereas his mother glared at it from behind the curtains.

  Discarded furniture, bulging plastic bags, and mounds of clothing surrounded her little nest. Doris heated a can of soup on a hot plate sitting on the mattress next to her while she watched a small TV precariously perched on a pile of old newspapers. It was a fire inspector’s worst nightmare.

  Jasmine and Tommy were right; the place was uninhabitable. Especially for someone healing from major surgery. Gray cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and dust furred every surface. Black mold crept along the walls like a shadow of the plague. Somewhere down the hall came the steady drip of water.

  Leaving the living room, I visited the other unblocked portal. This one lay behind a rusty shed in the backyard. Like the house, the yard also contained numerous otherworld doorways, twenty-six altogether, and these too were blocked by garbage. Really large garbage. Several rusting cars rested on cinderblocks. The trailer of a semi truck squatted along a broken-down fence. There were enough doorless refrigerators and weatherworn couches to stock an entire furniture store. It shocked me that the township hadn’t given Doris a citation ages ago.

  The whole mess made me want to set my hair on fire. In part because the situation was worse than I’d ever imagined, and in part because I couldn’t bear the idea of anyone living there.

  I needed a second opinion.

  Although William frequently dropped in on me, I’d never visited his home before. Standing on the threshold of the otherworld and peering into his private world was far more intimate than anything else I’d shared with him.

  In his living room, William sat at a card table frowning at a book propped open next to him. While he read, he carefully wrapped black thread around something he held with a pair of pliers. As I tried to figure out what he was up to, he raised his head. “Lilith? Is that you?”

  When I came through the doorway, he dropped his project and hurried to clear the remains of his lunch from the coffee table in front of the couch. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have cleaned up.” He swept crumbs into a white bakery bag, picked up an empty coffee mug, and tucked the morning’s newspaper under his arm. “The place is a mess,” he said as he brought everything into the kitchen.

  I thought of the trash heap I’d just come from. “It looks okay to me.”

  He returned to the living room. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Soda?”

  It felt good to have him be the anxious host for once. “I’m fine.”

  With its dark paneled walls, leather beanbag chairs, and orange, shag carpeting, William’s living room was a tribute to 1974. I poked at a macramé room divider. “Have you considered remodeling?” I teased.

  “I did remodel,” he said. “In fact, your mother helped me.”

  That explained a lot. “When was that? Fifty years ago? I’ll bet if I walk into your bedroom, I’ll see a waterbed and a mirrored ceiling.”

  He lifted an eyebrow and smiled. “Would you like to find out?”

  I flushed. “No, thank you.”

  Bookcases lined the room, and I went to inspect the titles. To my surprise, his entire library consisted of ‘how to’ volumes. There were books on ballroom dancing basics, model rocket construction, canned food preparation, and stamp collecting. The bright-yellow spines of a complete For Dummies series were neatly lined up next to shelves of do-it-yourself DVDs. I pulled out an old hardcover entitled Build Your Own Crystal Radio and flipped through the pages. “You must have a lot of time on your hands.”

  “I have a very restless mind. Besides, Hell is boring.”

  Fascinated, I read a few more titles: Easy Wood Burning Projects, Brew Your Own Brew, The Art of Bonsai, Cribbage Basics. “Are you good at any of it?”

  “Unfortunately, I never stuck with anything long enough to find out.” He shrugged. “When I was growing up, my father hated that about me. He said I lacked perseverance.”

  “Nowadays, we’d call you ADD and give you a prescription.” I stood on my toes to check out a few titles on the highest shelves. “Which is your favorite?”

  He put one hand lightly on my waist and reached over my shoulder with the other. “I don’t really have a favorite, but this was my first one. It was given to me by my father.” He pulled out an old, leather-bound book embossed with fancy, gold letters.

  When I read the title, I laughed. “How to Lead a Virtuous Life.”

  William smiled mischievously. “It was the one pastime I never bothered to try. Well, that and taxidermy.”

  “So what were you doing when I came in?” I asked.

  His expression changed to one of boyish enthusiasm. “Here, I’ll show you.” He sat back down at the table and continued winding the black thread. In a minute, he clipped the end and held up his project: a small, feathered object on a wickedly sharp hook.

  “Is that for fly fishing?”

  “Not exactly.” He picked up a very short fishing pole lying on the floor next to him and tied the fly to the end of the line. He flicked the pole sideways and cast the hook across the room. Immediately, the little demon who had startled me the night before darted out from under the couch and dashed towards the hook. But before she could reach it, William flicked it in another direction. The demon took off after it, her hindquarters sliding sideways as she cornered.

  “Won’t she hurt herself if she gets the hook in her mouth?”

  “She’s a full demon. Her hide’s tougher than steel.”

  The demon finally caught the fly and crunched the hook with her powerful teeth. William grinned. “This is much more fun than fishing.”

  Now that the fly had stopped moving, the demon lost interest in it. Instead, she zipped up to me, swatted at my ankles, and scampered off again. I squealed, making William laugh. “Calamity! Naughty girl!” he said.

  “Calamity? That’s what you named your pet demon?”

  “It suits her.” He picked up more thread and another hook. “When I was a young boy, my father gave me an illustrated book about bad children who were tormented by their sins for all eternity.”

  “How dreadful!” I said. “I can’t imagine terrorizing a child like that.”

  “It gave me nightmares all right.” He threaded the eye of the hook. “But my little monster here resembles the picture
of the calamity beast from the book.”

  Calamity jumped on the table, scattering William’s tools with her wayward tail. He smiled fondly and scratched her behind the ears.

  “She seems to be adjusting to her life away from Hell,” I said.

  “She is. And she has access to the doorways so she can get back to the otherworld whenever she needs to.”

  Calamity enjoyed William’s attention for a moment before nipping his thumb with her sharp teeth, drawing blood. He cried out in pain. “Bad girl!”

  I noticed several, long scratches among the dark hairs on his forearms. “Maybe you should invest in a book on how to train demons.”

  He sighed and put his pet on the floor. “She’s feisty all right. And headstrong. But she’s also playful and very loving when she wants to be.” He smiled impishly. “In fact, she reminds me a lot of you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Very funny.”

  When William finished the second fly and tied it to the pole, he held it out to me. “Care to try?”

  Although I’d never been fishing in my life, I couldn’t resist. Unfortunately, when I cast the line, I accidently hooked the macramé room divider and nearly yanked the thing from the ceiling. William shook his head, amused, as he freed the hook. “Try it again, but keep your wrist straight and don’t bring it back so far.”

  I followed his instructions and this time sent the fly across the room. Calamity joyfully chased it down. When she caught it, she proudly dropped it at my feet. “She is a lot of fun,” I admitted.

  William smiled and began tying another fly. “Not that I mind your company, but what brings you here?

  Finally remembering Doris, I said, “I need advice. Tommy wants me to help out his mother with her hoarding problem.”

  Immediately, his expression darkened. “Why are you always helping out that boy?”

  “I feel like I owe him,” I admitted. “After all, I did use him to save my daughter.”