A Rock and Family Vacation

[26]

The commissary, so-called commissary, appeared more like a fragment of a dollar store or a poor approximation of the Goodwill. Random golf balls were marked as individual items and clubs had a special tag that separated them from vouchers. It should’ve been obvious, but the most they were going to get for free ranged towards a maximum of five dollars. Brooke was tenacious though and hunted down a beaten-up but applicable fleece jacket in her size. Eliot considered some off-brand ear pods while Clare settled on a floppy little beanie frog with its eyes open in surprise. Blair and Lacy were the last to finally choose but for vastly different reasons.

Blair knew exactly what she wanted, setting her eyes and thoughts on the massive snack bag labeled for vouchers in the back. The expiration date was just a few weeks away, but she could easily finish it off before then. She devoted most of her searching time to quietly paying attention to Lacy. The first thing she did was grab hold of the marked-off, women’s clothing rack. No glance toward the scattered, rebated games until at least several minutes in. Even then, she regarded the selection the same as Blair treated the blankly staring fish at the back of the supermarket.

Ultimately, Lacy settled on a bright pink tracksuit with vaguely 80s-style flair along the shoulders. That didn’t especially alarm Blair. Her sister had been adventurous last night, with plausible reasoning. Plus, the outfit dangled softly against her not too different from the robe. No, what made her and Brooke both tighten their eyes with concern was the velour material. Lacy hated that stuff because it felt far too close to woolen suffering for her fingers. Brooke knew well how careful she needed to be around her child when wearing anything close to velour. It was Lacy‘s nightmare material and yet she eagerly snuggled the outfit and sprawled it over her shoulder before asking, “Everyone find something they like?”

Eliot questioned his daughter, “Are you sure you’d like that? Don’t want to waste the voucher.” Lacy wore a quiet expression of subtle confusion as she traced a hand across the outfit again before reiterating, “No, this looks and feels really nice. It’s pretty. I’d like to get it.” Brooke checked it herself and could detect no difference between this style of velour and what was on the outfits she wore. Just to be absolutely sure, she reminded Lacy about her distaste for the style. This garnered a thoughtful, reflective moment for Lacy as she rubbed the front and other parts between her fingers. Nothing caught or hurt her flesh, although only the mildest traces of her rough skin were present.

“Oh, right. Such a shame though, but alright.” That didn’t sit particularly well with Brooke. She had no desire to dissuade Lacy from whatever choices she made about clothing and fashion, she just had a hard time believing this pick was genuine. Lacy eventually selected a polyester style tracksuit with absolutely no chance of getting snags. A young woman at the counter dimly regarded their presence as they passed forward the vouchers. For a split second, Blair pondered if this was the same lady she encountered at the clothing store working a second job. She definitely retained the same soul-broken presence.

When it was her turn, Lacy politely smiled and cracked a random, goofy joke about tortoises. The clerk regarded her quietly, with her eyes dipping through an imaginary space before returning to peer at her. Slowly, it was like the frail glimmer of light, locked behind a cave flooded with water, burst with solar radiance. She crouched down and held back a spasm of laughter. The clerk wiggled and squirmed in place until all efforts at holding back her laughter were futile and a wild giggle broke the tepid silence of the room. Lacy joined her in a faint echo of that delight. Happiness suffused the room and brought a careful calm for the rest of the family. In that same instant, Blair shifted her grip on the bag containing the rock.

It suddenly felt alarmingly warm despite the AC blasting its very best. Furthermore, Blair noticed the bounding energy of the clerk’s laughter dulled and cooled to passive calm. Not as though the uproarious energy burst forth and bled away, but rather like an umbrella they had sheltered under from the sun. Something managed to cut the full force of that energy. The muted version of that feeling wasn’t the cold, empty pit she had recognized a moment before but rather a mild divot in the land over which the setting sun carved out light and shadow. And that energy lingered as she hustled through everyone’s voucher and politely bagged the entire transaction. Once that was finished, she didn’t return to her original, zombified state but rather fastidiously cleaned around the desk and then lightly whistled her way through organizing everything that appeared scattered or astray.

The earlier blazing alarm in each of them had also dulled to a watchful caution. Lacy was certifiably different and unusual since her restroom visit, but Blair concluded that didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong. Her sister had a lot of peculiar qualities, especially as a boy. She made a big deal about her vocal inflection, along with its overall weight and presence. Blair admitted that Lacy kind of talked like a girl, even in her most boyish moments. His puberty was gradually nudging that rock through the deepening gravel but with slow reluctance. Now, it was like a boulder tumbled backwards and shot off the cliff towards some girlish valley. If it wasn’t such a joke between them, she would readily conclude that Lacy had been assimilated by the girlish hive mind and made into one of the drones. That was, naturally, ridiculous. But not impossible…

Another unnatural but not terrible note was how gentle Lacy was with their younger sister. When Clare started a curious question, Lacy crouched beside her at her level and encouraged her words. Walking back to the car, she also held Clare’s hand and watched every corner with motherly scrutiny. She appeared to be a pleasantly happy girl who seemed perfectly natural in her own skin. There were so many questions that Blair wanted to pry into and press her about but part of her feared what the answers might reveal. Clare and Lacy were the thick thieves now, showing off cute things to one another and delighting in calm pleasantries. That should not have bothered Blair. Most times she just rolled her eyes at her sibling and grumbled about how dependent she seemed to be on her. Lacy just needed her, as was desperately obvious from how she tried to unsuccessfully sabotage Blair‘s college applications. It should’ve been perfectly fine that her middle sibling was not freaking out and wasn’t wrapped up in her for everything. But instead, she felt a strange pang, as though a part, a deep part of her body, was being dragged away from her. She wanted to turn up her nose at the notion, but it still ached.

Dad seemed the most affected out of everyone. When they picked up their car from the valet, he tipped as much as he could spare. He got turned around in the lanes and wound up getting beeped at for following a downstream path up. It got worse when they snaked along the road and down the hill and his face and mind looked like they were in several different places at once. Merging onto Broad, Brooke practically screamed when he had to swerve to the right to avoid a white car shooting down the hill. The worst of it was the driver going into obvious road rage mode as they carefully made their way down the hill, and he refused to let this go. Eliot scowled through his window with feral intensity while Brooke backed him up. Brooke desperately understood that her husband was at fault for the turn but the raging asshole to their left, cutting over the double yellow lines to fume and break traffic laws, needed to take a flying leap.

To everyone’s relief, the distracted driver had to swerve around oncoming traffic and nearly barreled into one of the decorative trees. At precisely the right moment, a squad car rolled up and flashed its lights behind him. Listlessly, the driver pulled to the side. With relief and vindication, Eliot stated, “Thank karma.” Clare puzzled at this and inquired about what that meant about the car. Normally, their father would’ve offered a good-natured but not patronizing laugh and eagerly explained the rhetorical connotation as well as the unintended wordplay.

That was how Blair, in his early years, developed and fine-tuned his sense of humor. But all that wordplay felt like it dried up, for dad and for her. Mom appeared as though she could’ve resolved the confusion, but her eyes were glued to the glass and the unlikely possibility of another furious driver going after them for the least traffic infraction. The responsibility for explanation fell on Lacy and she delightedly delineated the idea of karma. “It’s the idea that everything you do, good and bad, is like measured out on a scale. And you get scored based on what it adds up to and that determines everything in your life and future. But sometimes, being mean to someone results in immediate consequences, like getting pulled over by the cops. Make sense?”

Clare tried her best to work that out but was left with a multitude of uncertainties and quandaries.

Lacy smirked to herself and ruffled Clare’s hair with her hand, saying, “Don’t worry about it too much, goofball.” Now that felt more like her sister.

Blair let go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. It allowed her to gather up all the stray pieces of thought she’d neglected. Cautiously, she asked her mom, “Oh. So, how did everything go with meeting up with grandpa?” Brooke glanced quickly over her shoulder and squeezed her hands in her lap.

“Grandpa was a no-show. We spent a little while in their gym and then over on the driving range. How about you guys? Are you… Is everyone alright?” She didn’t focus her attention on Lacy but rather skimmed all of her children’s eyes looking back at her.

That was a challenging question for Blair, but she managed to wiggle her eyebrows lightly and simply respond, “They were expecting three young guys. We were not that…for them. So, it was just games and riddles. Literally, that was it.” Part of her wanted to be more obtuse because of her level of embarrassment at the whole thing. At the same time, the peculiarity of the rings needed to be expressed to others eventually, even if it were a mere coincidence and the rock simply ran out of juice.

Brooke let out a long, easy breath with a tight chuckle. “Guess that’s karma too. If only… Grandpa felt the cut of it…”

Unexpectedly, Lacy chimed in. “I’m sure he will. Grandpa will face all the consequences destined for him. For all he’s done…” The tone in Lacy‘s voice sounded like nothing Blair had heard from her before. The emotion was stripped away for sharp, clinical clarity. Any presence of doubt was also missing and not in the boisterous, flippant way that Lacy often wielded to assuage uncertainty. Swallowing nervously, Blair glanced over at her sister. She was staring straight ahead, unblinking. Her eyes, usually bright and vibrant, wore a muted, grayish shimmer. She seemed to be the only one who noticed as their mother cleared her throat and quietly agreed with the sentiment that grandpa would get what was coming to him eventually, hopefully, while Clare glanced out the window at the trees.

Deeply but irrationally Blair could only suspect that the person sitting next to her was… somehow not Lacy. Not anymore.

—-

Vincent Muller looked up from his phone with a tense scowl. The sounds of children at play filtered through one of the monitors. He sat in a faded office chair beside a security station filled with black and white surveillance CCTVs. Plucking his white handkerchief from his silver breast pocket, he carefully cleaned the phone screen.

The door right behind him opened with the clink of a key. Edging his way inside, the mustachioed host twisted his face up a few ways with a ragged and halting breath before announcing, “Sir, they have left. As I’m sure you’re well aware. I don’t understand your requirements, but I have not denied them. However, I must protest your presence in this room, as the privacy and security of our guests from prying eyes is the foremost service we provide.”

Vincent looked the host directly in the eyes and pushed up his black-framed glasses with a finger. “No, it isn’t. Don’t try that nonsense with me, Elaine. I know every coal-black secret of this place dating back to the first shovelful. I’m done here. Pass along my sincere apologies and heartfelt greetings to my associates. Something more important has come up.” A host bristled at the mention of…that name.

Vincent rose from the chair and tucked his phone away gently in his pocket.

The host pressed, “Well, hold on just a minute now. I don’t like your tone. I could have the local sheriff on you in a moment for everything I’ve seen and so much more. Why I…”

Vincent sharply swiveled and pointed his finger right at the host’s robust nose. “You won’t. Good day.” He took a handful of large bills and pressed them into the host’s hand before finishing, ”I’ll see you again soon…Elaine.”

[I have a question at the end of the chapter again to help with suggestions for where the story should go. I'm a couple chapters ahead but I love seeding ideas from people as much as possible. Feel free to add an idea which doesn't show up in the options. Also, if you see any random typos or uncapitalized starts of sentences, please pass them along. I have to cut down on my editing due to release speed and my programs don't seem to be catching lowercase sentences. Thank you for reading!]

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