The Queen Gene by Jennifer Coburn

Author:Jennifer Coburn [Coburn, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 0758209843
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2006-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

The next afternoon my office phone rang. From the window I watched Anjoli sitting in the backyard sipping her tea and reading the newspaper as Adam tossed a gumball-sized rubber ball for Mancha to retrieve. They were perched in the area overlooking the guest houses, all three of which were motionless with inactivity. I’d seen Jacquie and Chantrell leave for the mall that morning. Maxime had taken off for one of his eternal hikes in the woods an hour earlier, and Randy had driven to town to purchase materials at the glass supply shop. (Who knew there was such a place?)

After spending his entire life with my mother, Mancha was no ordinary dog. He watched Adam toss the ball and just stared at it through his paper glasses. “Get ball, Cha-Cha!” insisted Adam. If a Chihuahua could make facial expressions, I knew his would be one of You’ve got to be kidding! The dog had no instinct to chase balls or engage in any other such canine silliness.

“Lucy,” said a man’s voice though the phone. I turned my head away from the window to focus on what the caller was saying. “It’s Earl from Healthy Living magazine,” he said. I sank into my hunter green leather chair which sat in front of my rustic, burled-wood desk that Jack made for me. I loved how it looked like a slice of tree with its undefined edges and tree rings on the surface. “Listen, sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. I was camping in Juneau. Y’ever been to Alaska?” I told him I had not. “Beautiful country. Don’t miss it. Really a sight to see. Anyway, I got your message, and I’d love to have you do a story for the Living the Dream section. The piece you did on the flax seed revolution is still getting letters.” This had to be a lie. Even I was bored by my pitiful attempts at humor throughout this thoroughly dull piece. “So tell me what you’ve got goin’ on there in your little corner of heaven.”

I sighed. “Earl, I’ve got to be honest with you. The dream has turned into a nightmare.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he replied. I peeked out the window again to see Mancha repeatedly reject my son’s efforts to play with him. “What’s going on?”

“First of all, not one visiting artist has created a single piece of art. The French guy has sunk into a depression and doesn’t do anything, much less sketch. He had an affair with the cellist who doesn’t play cello, but now goes out on endless shopping excursions with Maxime’s extremely bitter wife.”

“Maxime is?” Earl asked.

“Oh, sorry. Maxime is the French guy who used to do absolutely stunning sketches with thousands of ink dots the size of a needle prick. His wife, Jacquie, seemed like a breath of fresh air when she arrived, but quickly became a vitriolic demon of consumption. I’m serious, Earl, all this woman does is shop,” I said, laughing at how absurd it sounded.

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