Home for the Haunting(41)
“He’s not my man,” I said through gritted teeth.
“So there is something wrong.”
“Besides, the store’s not even open at this hour, is it?” I said, trying to ignore an annoying stab of insecurity. “And even if it is, I’m working. Running Turner Construction isn’t some hobby, Cookie. It’s work, real work, that pays the bills and keeps a roof over our heads.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Mel,” Cooke said, making a pretty little twist of her carefully colored lips as we approached my Scion and climbed in. “Dad paid off the mortgage years ago. You can afford to take a spa day.”
“Spa days are for people with more dollars than sense, not for people who work for a living,” I said, wondering where this working-class-hero stuff was coming from. I didn’t normally talk like this.
“You sound just like Dad.” Cookie sighed.
“And I most certainly could ‘nail Graham down’ if I wanted to, though I have no intention of doing so. What a terrible metaphor. It just so happens he wants me to be his girlfriend.”
How old was I, twelve? Why did I regress so quickly when my sister was around?
“Mm-hmmm,” she said with a half shrug, all innocence. “And where might Graham-the-perfect-boyfriend be these days?”
“Out of town. He’ll be back tomorrow,” I said, before realizing she would want to meet him. That must not happen.
“Oh, super! Let’s all have dinner, shall we? Or did he have a romantic tête-à-tête planned for just the two of you? I wouldn’t want to get in the path of true love.”
“I’ll have to get back to you on—oh, rats, the phone’s ringing,” I said, and grabbed for it as a drowning person grabs for a lifeline. “Excuse me, gotta take that.”
For once I was glad to have a call interrupt my day.
Chapter Eleven
I spent the rest of the day dragging Charlotte “Cookie” Dopkin, née Turner, from jobsite to jobsite, alternating between thinking I should find something to interest her and hoping to find something that would appall her. What was supposed to be a quick meeting with a client in union Square turned into a lengthy delay when Cookie disappeared into the bowels of Williams-Sonoma and refused to leave until she had found just the right French café press pot to bring home, because all Dad had was an old-fashioned Mr. Coffee drip machine. One might think that I’d find common ground with a fellow coffee snob, but Cookie’s forty-five-minute discussion of the comparative merits of German versus French press pots drove me smack out of my mind. It was only when I threatened to buy a domestic press pot and smash her over the head with it that she agreed to leave.
“Well, that was fun, wasn’t it?” she asked as I stomped out of the store. “Hungry? Methinks somebody’s feeling the effects of low blood sugar.”
“We could grab some tacos at the taco truck if you’d like.”
“You know, I’m afraid I gained a few pounds over the holidays that I’m still trying to lose. I don’t have to tell you how hard that can be! How about a salad?”
“No time for yet another sit-down meal.” I had given in and let her take me to a fancy café earlier for lunch. “I don’t want to be late for my class.”
“I see the perfect solution—pull in there!” Cookie said, pointing to a strip mall. Ten minutes later, we were sitting at the juice bar of an organic food store drinking wheatgrass shots.
“Isn’t this the best?” Cookie chirped. “Mens sana in corpore sano! A healthy mind in a healthy body!”
“You bet,” I said, using a toothpick to Roto-Rooter the wheat germ that was clogging my straw so I could finish the yogurt-mango smoothie. “Who needs carne asada and fresh salsa when you’ve got . . . whatever this sludge is?”
“Oh, you goofball!” Cookie said. “You can’t kid me; you’ve always liked yogurt.”
“I’ve always hated yogurt. Daphne, our other sister, likes yogurt.”
“Really? I could have sworn . . . Well, a little yogurt never hurt anybody.”
By the time we arrived at Olivier Galopin’s haunted supply store, I was more in need of a stiff drink than of a lecture on how the metal in household locks, doorknobs, hinges, and the like can retain energy from beyond.
As we approached the brick building in Jackson Square, one of the oldest neighborhoods of San Francisco, Cookie reared back.
“A ‘ghost hunting and spiritual supply shoppe’?” she read from the painted sign, hanging like a pub medallion over the door. “How come you refused to go shopping all day and now we’re at your friend’s shoppy?”