Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Alistair confirms this with a nod, and I am most definitely in Dougal’s bad books. The man is outraged.
“But I didn’t in fact hit your car, did I?” I ask. “I swerved and hit a concrete bollard instead.”
“Are you all right, Lilah?” asks Lady Helena.
“The muscles in my neck are a little stiff. But otherwise fine. Thank you.”
“You didn’t tell me your neck was sore,” says Alistair, suddenly looking concerned.
“It’s nothing.” I stand and wander over to the front of the house with its view of the Pacific Ocean. “What a great outlook.”
“We’re right on the beach,” confirms Lady Helena. “If you like sand. Which I don’t.”
“You live at the beach, but you don’t like the beach?”
“I like looking at it from a suitable distance with a drink in my hand. Much more civilized.”
“Are you still seeing that medium, Mother?” asks Alistair.
“Colin? Yes. But he prefers to be called an intuitive.” She pauses to sip her scotch. “He’s been so helpful. We’ve been dealing with a lot of my issues around self-love. He actually had a message for me to pass on to you the last time I visited. He said, ‘Beware the color blue.’ It all sounded rather ominous, actually. Make of that what you will.”
Alistair’s gaze slips from my face to my pale blue tee and back again. Then he says, “Very interesting. Tell Colin I said thank you.”
As juvenile as it is to scratch your cheek with your middle finger, it still happens from time to time. Such is life.
“Betty White is one of his spirit guides,” continues Lady Helena. “Isn’t that brilliant?”
“I would take advice from Betty White,” I say.
Dougal nods. “You’d be a fool not to.”
“Remind me, Mother,” says Alistair. “What happened to that last psychic you were seeing?”
Lady Helena sighs and flops back in her chair. “It’s hardly Gabi’s fault that she’s in jail for grand larceny. Communing with the dead is complicated. Messages are bound to get jumbled every now and then. It’s also not like everyone is ready to hear the truth, let alone have the wisdom to apply it to their life in a beneficial manner. It’s so sad the way people harbor resentment in their hearts.”
“That is sad,” I agree, turning to her son. “It’s not like we don’t all do things now and then that we regret. And to forgive is divine.”
Alistair’s gaze is as cranky as can be. Due to my research or this visit with his mother or a combination of both, I do not know. But it would greatly ease my mind if he could be less hot while behaving ever so slightly like a dick.
Lady Helena points her glass of scotch in my general direction. “Exactly right, Lilah. We can only move forward by releasing the past and embracing the future.”
“What nonsense,” grumbles Alistair. “All your psychics and spirit guides. You know I don’t believe in any of it. What happened to science and reason?”
“Well, my darling boy, I believe we should all be free to live our truth.”
“I’m well aware.”
“That’s enough,” says Dougal sternly.
“Imagine him daring to disparage my spiritual beliefs. And just like that—” Lady Helena snaps her fingers “—he’s out of the will.”
“Again,” says Alistair in a lighter tone.
She laughs. “Again. I don’t know how many times that is now. Just as well—I can’t be bothered to contact my solicitor and make any actual changes.”
“Phew,” says her son with a small smile. His gaze lingers on me as he sips his scotch. Then, out of nowhere, a sly sort of smile appears on his lips. “Actually, Mother,” he says. “You asked what Lilah drinks? I just remembered, she mentioned wanting to try absinthe. It’s another item on her list.”
Lady Helena bursts out of her seat. “What a wonderful idea!”
“No. Absolutely not. I’m putting my foot down,” says Dougal, who does indeed put his foot down. “The last time you opened a bottle of that stuff, you rang you-know-who and told him to kiss your ass.”
“That was years ago, and he deserved it. You know he did.” Lady Helena sweeps over to the bar and reaches for the top shelf. Several sparkling diamond bracelets slide up her arm as she stretches and strains. “I won’t be the one drinking it, anyway. It’s for Lilah. Alistair. Darling. Please help. I’ll need the fountain too if we’re to do this properly. I think it’s on the bottom shelf of the cupboard here.”
Alistair rises to his feet. “Coming, Mother.”
“Well—” Dougal sighs heavily “—I hope you have a stout constitution, lass.”
“Me too,” I say, with no small amount of fear.
* * *
“Your mother is a creature of pure chaos.”
“You’re not wrong,” says Alistair. “Are you sure you don’t need ibuprofen or something for your neck?”
“I’m fine.”
Malibu is magic. It reminds me of hanging out at the beach when I was younger. The sun is setting, and the play of colors across the sky is sublime—hues of orange and terra-cotta fade to peach and pink before melting into lavender and mauve. There’s something soothing about watching the water. Having an unimpeded view of this dreamlike vista from Helena’s living room. And yet my sigh is the heaviest known to womankind.