Under the Skin (26 page)

Glory believed it. Or desperately wanted to. From the minute Joss began the improbable tale, I could see the depth of her longing to accept it as true.

Joss was quivering with pent-up excitement, one leg jigging up and down and his fingers beating a nervous tattoo on the table as he began his story.

“Okay. So, I moved to Asheville about six months ago—I’m studying massage therapy and waiting tables at a place in Biltmore Village. I met Nigel at a party back in February and he was doing these intuitive readings. He put his hands on my head and right away told me that I was searching for someone very important to me—someone I hadn’t seen in a very long time.”

He turned his dark eyes on Gloria and I felt a chill at the intimacy of the shared gaze.

“Excuse me,” I said, “but I thought that Nigel was a hairstylist. What—”

“Oh, Nigel’s a psychic too,” Gloria hastened to explain. “He told me that he’d always been gifted that way and when he worked on people’s hair, he often got very strong impressions—”

Joss ignored my interruption and continued, his eyes
still fixed on my sister. “I told him I’d been searching for my mother ever since I learned that I was adopted, but that none of the databases could tell me anything. I’d begun to believe that maybe she really
had
died when I was born. That was the story my adoptive parents had always told me—they may have even believed it.”

For a moment the young man seemed to be struggling for words. A troubled expression flitted across his face.

“Nigel and I got to be friends—he thinks we knew each other before—in a previous life, I mean. He’s been really good for me, helping me understand who I am … and he’s the one who suggested I come for this weekend.”

Joss wrinkled his brow and reached up to adjust his bandage. “I think that’s right. I think it was Nigel who said something about finding my mother … but since the accident, my memory is kind of messed up.”

“I’d been wondering about the bandages,” I said, wondering even harder where all this was leading.

“A car knocked me down when I was crossing the street,” he explained. “I was lucky it wasn’t worse—that’s what they said. And my memory
is
coming back. It’s just sometimes, there are two different memories …”

He looked at Gloria and a sweet smile spread over his face. “But that’s not important anymore. All my important memories begin today, don’t they?”

His smile widened. “I need to call Nigel right now and tell him what’s happened—that his reading was right.

He’ll …”

Joss’s voice trailed off and he stood, reaching for the cellphone on his belt. “I owe it all to Nigel … I have to call him right away …”

“Gloria, do you believe all that stuff Joss was saying?”

My sister and I were soaking in one of the hot tubs at
the spa, preparatory to going for our massages and whatever other treatments she had signed us up for. Though I hadn’t been especially eager for the spa experience, I was glad that this previous appointment had cut short the increasingly emotion-charged conversation that Gloria and Joss had fallen into. And so, I think, was she.

Our tub was outdoors—tucked away amid the trees and close enough to the creek that its soothing murmur was an additional pleasure. Birdsong—sunlight glinting through leaves—an idyllic spot. For a brief, selfish instant, I wished that it was Phillip sharing this moment rather than Gloria.

“Do I believe that Joss is the child they told me was dead?” Gloria was stretched out in the gently steaming water, her head resting on the edge of the blue fiberglass tub, her eyes closed. She looked drained, as if she’d just completed some tiring journey.

Letting out a deep sigh, she opened her eyes. “Lizzy, I don’t know what to think. I would love to believe it. And I did, for a moment or two.”

She trailed her hands through the water, rippling the surface. “Back there, during the séance, when I heard the word ‘Mama,’ my body responded. Do you remember how just the sound of your baby crying would make the milk come in? I didn’t nurse Ben long—it was just so inconvenient—but even after my milk had dried up, whenever he cried, suddenly my breasts would feel full …”

A tear appeared and slid slowly down her cheek. “And that’s what happened when Joss called to me; it was like I was in a dream, a dream I’ve had over and over—except that in the dream, the baby I called Dana is a girl.”

“Oh, Glory …” I pulled myself around to her side
of the hot tub and put my arms around her. My little sister …

I held her tight, without saying more. Then, after a long moment, “Listen,” I said, “let’s keep an open mind about this Joss. There are ways of finding out if he’s who he says he is.”

“I know that.” Gloria put her hands to her face. “I’ve already been thinking of who I might call. But …” She gulped, regained her composure, and began again. “But maybe I’d rather just believe he
is
my lost child.”

I kept my arms around her and tried to make sense of the situation.

“I hope that he is, Glory. But let’s go slow here. He says he was adopted at birth by folks who live near New Bern. Just think how many adoptions there are every day. And he says that his birthday is the same as your baby’s but he couldn’t even show you a driver’s license to confirm the birth date. That’s awfully convenient.”

It had been the first thing I’d thought of. If Joss’s birth date was the same as the date Gloria’s lost baby was born—well, it wouldn’t prove a thing. But it would be a place we could begin.

Or so it had seemed to me. Joss, however, had shrugged his shoulders and explained, all too glibly, that the doctor who’d treated him for concussion after the car crash had warned him against driving until a return visit showed that it would be safe.

“I had a couple of blackouts—that was the problem—so I gave my license to a friend to hold for me so I wouldn’t be tempted to drive. Back in Asheville, I can ride my bike to class and to work. It’s no big deal,” he had said.

Hmm. As Ben would say, the story about the license sounded seriously sketchy. And then there was this Nigel thing. I knew that many women saw their hairstylists
as a combination confessor/girlfriend/shrink and were likely to—

“Glory,” I asked, “did you talk to Nigel about the child? You’re a very wealthy woman and it’s just possible—”

Gloria stiffened in my arms.

“You have such a suspicious nature, Lizzy! How would Nigel or Joss know anything at all about my financial situation?”

She stood and pulled herself out of the hot tub. “We need to go back to the spa. It’s almost one-thirty and the Head to Toe I’ve signed us up for takes over an hour.”

This conversation is over
was the message.

A full-body exfoliation had sounded to me like a dire medical condition, but I had to admit that being gently scrubbed with a combination of Dead Sea salts and essential oils felt rather nice, though the warm herbal wraps that followed—lengths of some stretchy fabric saturated with more oils and herbs and wrapped around my arms, legs, and torso, and then the whole of me covered in a thermal blanket—had me feeling like a pampered burrito.

At least my body felt like a burrito. Just now my face was receiving a hydrating treatment. Various liquids were patted on and massaged in and wiped off. There was warm stuff and cool stuff and cucumber slices over my eyes and something that smelled like honey and almonds and something that tingled and something that smelled minty.

“You want salad with that burrito?” I mumbled to myself.

“Isn’t this heavenly, Lizzy?” On the table next to mine, my sister was receiving the same full-body treatment. She had booked us into a “couples” room so we could enjoy the experience together but the presence of
the two busy massage therapists meant that we wouldn’t be having any awkward conversations about supposed long-lost children.

“It’s very … different,” I answered, trying to put some enthusiasm into my reply. “I feel … very … relaxed … and clean.”

Actually, that wasn’t the whole truth. I’m not keen on having a stranger putting hands on me. I also felt a touch claustrophobic, firmly wrapped up and weighed down by the heavy thermal blanket as I was. It was a lot like being at the gynecologist’s, where odd things are done to your body and, because you know it’s in your best interest, you just breathe deep and put up with it rather than run screaming down the hall. It amazed me that people paid for this. But obviously, I was in a minority here.

Swan, the masseuse who’d been working on Gloria, spoke. “We’re going to take a break before beginning the massage. You two just relax and let your bodies absorb the hydration. We’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

I could hear the soft click of the door shutting behind the two women. The clean, glorious sound of a Bach cello suite filled the room, replacing the syrupy-swoony New Age/space music that had been playing.

Now was my chance. “Glory,” I began, ready to tackle the subject of Joss again, “don’t you think—”

“I don’t want to think right now, Lizzy. This time is supposed to be for ultimate relaxation. I’m just going to drift away for a bit and so should you. It’ll clear our minds. I promise we’ll have a serious discussion later.”

There was a yawn and a profound exhalation, then deep, regular breathing. My sister and I are both good at avoiding things, I thought as I pushed aside the memory of the humming and the voice that had been in my head during the séance.
Not now
, I told myself and allowed
the music to sweep through me, the sobbing of the cello—Yo-Yo Ma?—like mental floss through my ears, sweeping my brain clear of all thoughts.

Buried alive—the grave clothes and the winding sheet clammy with underground ooze; the coins cold on my eyes. Bleak silence but for a slow dripping of some liquid. And the smell, not of the tomb but of honey and almonds and the herbs of the embalmers.

I twisted from side to side, trying to free myself from the grave and the darkness and the dream. The cucumber slices fell from my eyes and I was awake again, struggling to throw off the thermal blanket that had lost its heat and to divest myself of the mummy wrappings that had grown chill and slimy-feeling.

Turning my head, I saw that the other massage table was empty.

“Glory?” I spoke loud enough for her to hear me if she was in the little bathroom that adjoined this room.

No answer. The cello sang on.

Moving awkwardly in the oily wrappings, I sat up and called again, louder this time. “GLORY?”

Still no response. Surely the therapists on the other side of the door should have heard me. Grumbling to myself, I slipped off the table, draped a sheet around my partially wrapped body, and padded to the door.

Which was locked.

Saturday, May 26

I
grabbed the doorknob and gave it another savage twist but the door remained obstinately shut. Why in the world would it be locked? That had to be a violation of the fire code, at least. The claustrophobia began to inch its way back into my brain …

I gave the unyielding door a few stern raps. There must be an explanation for this.

“Kimberly? … Swan? … Hello? …”

No answer and my knocking became pounding. In the distance I could hear footsteps hurrying toward me and I pulled the sheet a little closer. A key rattled in the lock.

“What’s going on? Where are the therapists?”

The manager, a sandy-haired woman who’d been behind the front desk when we checked in for our treatment, scanned the room as if expecting to find the missing Kimberly and Swan hiding under the massage tables. She shot a concerned glance at me. “Are you all right? Can I get you some water? Maybe you’d better sit down and—”

“I’m fine,” I assured her, “but where’s my sister?”

Again there was the sound of hurrying feet and Kimberly and Swan appeared in the doorway, disheveled and out of breath.

“Oh, my god, I’m so sorry, Ms. Goodweather. We—”

“Kimberly, this is completely unacceptable!” The manager’s eyes narrowed. “Why was this room locked and where have you been and where is the other client?” Putting her hands on her hips, she waited for an answer.

“
We
certainly didn’t lock the door. And we were down the hall in the break room.” Swan was sputtering with righteous indignation as she tried to explain. “We were there for fifteen minutes and when we started to come back—”

“We couldn’t get out! We were locked in too.” Kimberly overrode her friend’s words. “Or at least, someone had jammed one of those big supply carts in the doorway and we couldn’t get past it. We ended up crawling out the window. When we were coming around the building to the door, I saw the linens truck driving off. I suppose it could have been them—the driver’s kind of a practical joker … but where’s Swan’s client? Where’s Gloria?”

We all looked at one another. Swan ducked into the bathroom and came back shaking her head. “Her clothes are still here. So are the robes. She can’t have gone far wearing just wrappings.”

Everyone snickered except me. Not only was I aware of how unlikely it was that my fastidious sister would be rambling around covered only by a few greasy strips of cloth, I was also aware that Gloria had a stalker. The Eyebrow. If he knew she was here and had somehow—And what about the other one, her buddy, the plastic surgeon—the one Phillip had told me about last night? Could he have—

“I need to make a call right away.” I turned to head for the bathroom where my clothes and purse were waiting.

“You can use the desk phone. Sometimes cell reception is a little spotty here.” The manager was holding out a robe for me so I backed into it, dropped my sheet,
and peeled off those of my mummy wrappings that hadn’t already dropped off.

The manager rattled off commands. “Swan. Check all the rooms—bathrooms too. Kimberly, you have a look outside. I’ll call down to the hot tubs, just in case.”

We were moving down the hall toward the front desk. I noticed that, in spite of that uneven reception, the manager was thumbing her BlackBerry. I figured she was hoping to find Gloria at the hot tubs before I called the law.