Jilly-Bean (Jilly-Bean Series # 1) (5 page)

Against her will, Jillian felt her facial muscles tighten and the corners of her mouth freeze up. She couldn't have opened her mouth to save herself and was having trouble making her fake smile relax. Could Adam's girlfriend have been any more insensitive about her feelings? Like a true fashionista, Olivia continued, “You may think a good hair treatment and cut is expensive, but it's worth every penny. Maybe even a different shade of hair colour that would bring out the greenish tints in your eyes. Have you ever thought of becoming a blonde?”

“Oh Liv, I don't think my hair looks that bad. It just needs a bit of a wave. It's— ”

“It's time for a change.” Olivia put a warm hand around Jillian's shoulder. “I'm going to Capucci's tomorrow. Maybe you'd like to come with me?” Her smile was confident and sure. This was the right thing to do.

“But Liv, I don't need a haircut,” Jillian whined. “Besides, I haven't slept much for the past few days, with apartment hunting and the job interview and all.”

Meanwhile, Adam had his back turned and was leaning hunched over, staring out the window into the ravine below, with his arms spread out on the sill. He seemed to be listening to the discussion. Despite his young age, he had a worldly-wise look about him which could only come from being in third year at the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and also being older than Jillian by five years.

“Where's mom, Dad?” Jillian asked.

“Oh, she's over at your aunt's house, helping prepare for one of those religious meetings of theirs.”

Adam abruptly turned around and snapped, “Dad, I wish you wouldn't call it 'religion'. There is nothing religious about sitting around a table and talking to dead relatives. Pagan superstition, that's what I'd call it.”

“Well, you know how your mother feels about it,” his father answered absently, carefully filling out the cheque for the first and last month's rent. “Sure as I'm standing here, I don't believe in that nonsense. I say 'religion' because that's what your mother calls it. I'm afraid my sister Jean put those foolish ideas into her head years ago. No one in their right mind believes those things are for real— as if we didn't know the dead have their rightful place six feet underground and aren't likely to leave it any time soon.”

Oh no,
thought Jillian,
another discussion about Mother's spiritual beliefs.
In her mother's defence, she said uneasily, “Everyone has to believe in something, I guess. Besides, it would be too sad and bleak if there were no God. Think about it. Wouldn't it be depressing to just think that there was nothing out there besides
us?
Its Mom's spiritual place, her religion.” Jillian regarded her mother's faith as filling a need for something beyond everyday life. However, the scandalous, lively meetings her mother attended were a topic of lively gossip among her family and friends. For Jillian it was all a hoax, a scam. No one actually believed in the existence of spirits wandering the night and talking to the living— 'crossing over,' as the initiates termed it. After all, the Middle Ages were long past. No one succumbed to silly superstitions any more, at least none of her friends. Her father was a nominal Catholic but had ceased to attend church many years before. While Jillian and her brother had attended public schools, they had treated their time spent in church and Sunday school as little more than an inconvenience— something they were forced to do, rather than an expression of any fervent belief in God. For Jillian, so many things about her religion didn't make sense: for instance, why did she have to say ten Hail Mary's if she lied? What was the point? For her, God was Christmas, Lent and Easter and bound up with growing old and death.

As if reading her thoughts, Olivia chimed in, “Religion is in every one of us; you don't have to attend church to feel it. Listen, Jilly-Bean, the three of us are heading out to Oakville tonight to take part in this séance. Do you want to come along?”

Jillian stared at Olivia, wide-eyed. “What? You're all going?”

Geordie Crossland called out loudly from the driveway, “Jillian, Olivia! Hurry up! We have to get a move on; otherwise we'll never get to Oakville in time for the witches' mass.” Turning to Adam, he added in jest, “There's a full moon tonight, son. Did you bring the garlic?”

Adam was regarding his father with a sly grin and shaking his head.

Moments later, Jillian and Olivia came rushing out of the house, slamming doors and laughing with nervous excitement. They ran to the car and quickly got settled in, buckling their seatbelts. The car backed up slowly out of the driveway, while Molly looked on forlornly from the veranda with her head slumped on both front paws, feigning sleep. They had arranged for a neighbour to look in on her and take her for walks while they were away for the weekend.

Driving along the highway, the black shimmering water of Lake Ontario to one side and the murmur of voices in the background, Jillian's thoughts turned to her aunt and uncle. She remembered a tall willowy woman with delicate hands so thin they seemed almost transparent, a sweet sad face, grey luminous eyes and blonde greying hair parted in the middle and cut into a blunt style around her face. A woman always impeccably dressed. Uncle Phil was a stout rosy-faced man with a round bald head and a cherubic smile who always reminded Jillian of an overgrown baby. He made up for his short stature by having amassed plenty of money, having made a huge windfall in the stock-market rally of the early 1990's by day trading in the dot-com market. The rest of the time, her aunt and uncle spent gardening a huge expanse of land, growing fruits and vegetables, keeping rabbits, goats and chickens and making their own strawberry and blueberry preserves, which they carefully wrapped with ribbons and dried flowers for family and guests to take back home with them. They disliked the noise and pollution of Toronto, preferring the rural ambiance of Oakville. Uncle Phil and Aunt Jean were a childless couple, but they loved children. The greatest regret of their lives was having been denied a large family, although many believed Aunt Jean now had her hands full taking care of Granddad Crossland. He was eighty years old and arthritic and had developed Alzheimer's disease the previous year.
Why not put him in a nursing-home, Jean? That's what they're there for!
But her aunt could not envisage her beloved father under the care of a bevy of hospital workers who might accidently give him the wrong dose of medicine and kill him off. Her father had become her child; the roles were now reversed.

After about half an hour, the car reached the property and made a sharp turn through an imposing pair of iron gates. A long winding dirt road led them through large clusters of butterfly bushes and trees. Looking back through the rear window, Jillian could see a cloud of dust marking the car's passage along the lane. The property was sited next to an abandoned church on the outskirts of Oakville and dated back to the seventeenth century. Tall, unpruned yews hid the house from the road. An original simple wooden farmhouse had been transformed by her aunt and uncle into a two-storey mansion— an accomplishment that excited much interest and admiration from the local residents.

Within moments, they made their way up the steps. Then catching her breath, Jillian walked up to the door and pulled an old-fashioned wrought-iron knocker, which echoed throughout the lobby inside. Moments later, the door opened.

“Well, Hello, hello!” gushed her Aunt Jean in loud greeting. Jillian thought she looked well preserved for her age, not much changed since she had last seen her. She wore a long silk wrap-around dress in rustic shades of brown and orange that made Jillian feel frumpy in her choice of an oversized sundress picked hastily from the closet and which did nothing for her figure. She stared at her aunt in wonder and amazement; plainly she had no intention of growing old and would fight it every step of the way. Her aunt approached as if to kiss her face but instead kissed the air around her while they faintly pressed and brushed cheeks.

“You finally got here! We were getting worried, thinking you might have gotten into a car accident.”

“The traffic was slow. Damned construction!” grumbled Jillian's father.

Aunt Jean then turned her large sorrowful eyes on Jillian and stepped back a few paces. She tilted her head with measured inclination, critically assessing her niece's dress and shoes, and murmured under her breath, “My graciousness you certainly are growing up fast, Jilly. I still remember when you were a wee, tiny little girl.” Tears had welled up in Aunt Jean's eyes, but in the next instant her face brightened and she demanded, “Come at once and greet your auntie with a hug!” Jillian found it so awkward to hug relatives. “Well, don't just stand there all day, you three!” her aunt gushed. “Come along. Come along.” She guided them into the living-room, where a handful of guests had already assembled, including Jillian's mother, who was helping distribute food to the guests. This was followed by breathless hellos and self-conscious hugs and kisses.

“Good to see you, Geordie,” shouted Uncle Phil, extending a hand. “So nice of you to join us this evening. I tell you, Geordie, I've lost a bundle in the stock market within the past month.”

Geordie Crossland's attention shot up immediately: “Oh? Really? What stocks were you in?”

“Not stocks. Options! A small step up from gambling, let me tell you. ” Uncle Phil was chuckling as he jangled loose change in his pockets. The two men got into a discussion on the price earnings ratios and return on investment of a certain choice stock he had his eye on, which Jillian listened to in respectful and uncomprehending silence. Then turning to her, as if suddenly aware of her presence, he clasped both her hands and squeezed them almost too hard, whispering through the corner of his mouth: “So, little Jilly-Bean's graduated from high school and is off to Queen's, I hear.”

“Yes, that's true, Uncle Phil.”

“Ruth, your baby girl is shivering. Have a seat here away from the draughty windows, Jilly-Bean,” cried her Aunt Jean. “And what's all this nonsense I hear from your father about you living in a house in the fall? Why aren't you moving into residence, like all the other students?” Aunt Jean looked over her shoulder to give Ruth Crossland a mischievous wink. “Your poor mother must be a wreck.”

“Oh, she'll be fine.”

“But, Ruth, how can you let her live all by herself in a strange city?”

“Jilly is a responsible girl, she can take care of herself. She's quite mature for her age.”

Jillian was distracted and looked anxiously around the room at the guests assembled. There was her brother, Adam and Olivia in a far corner talking to city councillor Peter Paradis and his wife Jennifer. She could make out bits and pieces of conversation: Adam was talking loudly about the Canadian penal system, exuding confidence and looking quite the expert, while Olivia, who stood a good five inches shorter than Adam's six-foot-three frame, was nodding enthusiastically and smiling. Mrs. Sparks, an old friend of the family, was sitting next to her husband, a man who said very little and refused to make eye contact with guests, preferring instead to focus on some object or other, maintaining a fixed smile as everyone else talked. Mrs. Sparks was a heavy-breasted Texan in her late forties who imagined herself to be twenty years younger. She looked bored as she reached for a drink and took a few sips; then her eyes darted quickly around the room and abruptly locked with Jillian's as she realized that Jillian had been watching her all along. Jillian's grandfather was sitting in the corner to one side, away from the guests. Growing up, she had never really thought much about him. She had found him mysterious, even then always sitting alone in gloomy silence. Now he looked even more yellowed than she ever remembered him to be; but then she realized that the chair he was sitting on was of crushed yellow velvet and would make anyone who sat there look like he had jaundice. His head was drooped forward on his chest; his breathing was laboured and came through his mouth. She wondered whether he was asleep. But then, as if sensing the weight of Jillian's stare, he raised his head and regarded her in silence— a movement that she found quite startling. She smiled back at him, although she knew full well that he was nearly blind and couldn't see her. There had been plenty of talk about his developing cataracts in both eyes.

Tea was ceremoniously brought in, accompanied by a large tray of tiny crackers with a soft pink paste.

“Ginseng is supposed to be a great memory-booster, especially as one gets older,” announced a small woman who bore a strong resemblance to a Chihuahua with her pointy chin and very thin face. Jillian had been introduced to her, but the name had slipped her mind. The woman was sitting next to a man who was obviously her husband, a large overweight man with a pot belly. He was leaning back, trying to make himself comfortable in the best and most comfortable armchair in the whole room. There were extra cushions supporting his back as he sipped a cocktail and studied Olivia.

The woman with the Chihuahua face continued, “I drink ginseng tea three times a day and I've noticed a significant improvement in my memory and attention span.”

“It's a Chinese medicinal, is it not?” added Aunt Jean firmly, as she helped herself to a second cup of tea.

“Yes, apparently in rural China, they drink eight cups a day. This probably explains their long lifespans.”

Granddad Crossland's head shot up and he looked absently about with a somewhat blank expression. Jillian saw that the whites of his eyes were stained with a yellow film, giving them a cloudy, unfocused appearance. Although he seemed to be following the discussion, if the truth were told, he was almost completely deaf. “Sponge?” he blurted out suddenly: “What's this about a sponge?”

Jillian's father was sitting next to him and absently patted his hand a few times and replied, “Not sponge, Dad!”

“You're not talking about sponges?”

The guests darted anxious glances his way, very much as one would look at a small child who had spoken out of turn.