Mike & Karen Ch. 24

"Ari says the comm system may be on the fritz for several hours. Whatever happened in the basement knocked it out rather thoroughly," Karen replied in what could at best be described as a neutral tone as she led her servant toward the grand library from the Hall of Ancestors. "But it's a start, Miss Prospero. And when you're starting at the bottom, there's only up, correct?"

Unless somebody brought dynamite, she muttered darkly to herself. Or cyclopentane...

She stopped in the foyer, frowning at how chilly it still was after all the windows had finally been shut and the power restored. Thank God she was now wearing a bra so her nipples didn't show through her blouse. She walked into the library, casting her gaze around as she looked for something. Seconds later, Tatyana, the seneschal, entered the room, nodding politely. "You seem unusually confused, ma'am."

"I'm looking for something," Karen answered somewhat absently, her golden-amber eyes sweeping across the athenaeum and not finding her quarry. "The attaché case I had left in here."

"Ah, that," the Russian woman said, nodding. "Yes, Mr. Ontekone told me the gentleman came by from the museum and he passed it off to the man."

Karen thought about that for a second and nodded. "Oh... good. One less thing to distract me. With that out of the way, I can get on with some other projects before the bishop arrives."

Tatyana nodded again and exited, off on her next duty. Karen nodded to Valentina. "Right. I need to get back to what I was doing. You're free to return to your duties, Miss Prospero."

The short girl curtsied and hurried off to make sure the Hooper Study was ready for later. Karen went back up to her office and sighed, turning on the desktop again. She scowled as she realized that she'd lost all her work, having been so intent on her wording that she hadn't saved yet. Well, how was she supposed to know there would be an unscheduled outage? Mike was always telling her she didn't save often enough. He not only had a prodigious, eidetic memory, but he also wrote everything down, just in case a rogue asteroid slammed into his head and impaired his cognitive functions. It annoyed her that he was no doubt right.

She looked at the notes she'd written out and remembered just about everything she intended to say. Maybe with this second round she might improve on it? A few quick moments to look it over and-

Her cellphone buzzed and she picked it up to examine the number. She wasn't terribly interested in being distracted from her task unless it was important. It was her neighbour, Nancy Ingram. She bipped the answer button.

"Nancy?" she began, addressing her neighbour. "How are you?"

"Fine, Karen," the other woman said. "But there may be a small hitch in our plan."

"I hope it doesn't involve your husband moving on to living and breathing bodies for his proclivities," Karen mentioned, smirking slightly.

"Yeah, no," Nancy replied, sounding a little hesitant. "But it is about the donation you made."

Karen blushed, thinking up an answer that was also an obfuscation on the spot. Apparently the lingerie handoff had been made as well. "I'm sorry, I was hoping he wouldn't notice. I'm afraid that during an intimate moment, some of my husband's essence might have stained-"

"No, that's not it," interrupted her neighbour. "When my man came and got the parcel from your daughter, he-"

"Who?" Karen asked, taking her turn to interrupt. "My who?"

"Your daughter," Nancy explained. "She gave my man a case and he brought it back here."

Since when do I have a daughter? Karen wondered, frowning at the phone for a moment. Nancy was an absolute ditz, no question, but surely she knew that Karen didn't have a daughter. Or at least that Alex was a boy. Didn't she?

"And I was quite looking forward to your donations, but when I opened the case, there was some junky-looking kids' jewelry in it, not the lingerie."

Junky kids' jewelry?

"I don't suppose you'd care to elucidate, would you?" Karen suggested.

"No, I already went, thank you," Nancy replied, making Karen blink. "But the case just had a little necklace in it wrapped in silk. It looked like Play-Doh painted gold, and then little red plastic beads along its length."

Karen's eyes went wide.

The matriarch turned pale as a terrible realization crashed over her, and her stomach did a small roll, and dip to the left, turning to ice. If Nancy got the Sargon, then the other attaché case went...

She hurried out into the hallway, making a beeline for the creedence table she'd left the other case on. The bag was missing.

"Nancy, I'll call you back," Karen said with urgency. "I need to head a disaster off at the pass."

"Okay, I'll just-"

But Karen had already ended that rather exasperating call and was already on another one to a different number. She was pacing back and forth across her office now, burning a hole in the floor wherever her eyes were focused. After moments that felt like centuries, someone finally picked up.

"ROM Antiquities..."

"This is Karen DeBourne, on behalf of the Blackwell Trust" she said in a dead serious voice. "Is the curator there?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "I'm looking across the department's storage hall at him. Do you need to speak-"

"Listen to me very carefully..." Karen instructed, not caring if her tone frightened the woman on the other end of the line. "Call your courier who just received something from my house not so long ago. Tell him to turn around and bring it back immediately."

Another pause. "Is the item in the attaché case dangerous? Because our intern already dropped it off."

Karen went pale again. "It's already there."

"I'm looking at it on the curator's desk, he just hasn't attended to it yet. He's working on a funding proposal and didn't want to be disturbed."

What a realm of bliss that must be, she thought darkly to herself. "I need that parcel back, no questions asked, and I'll be sending the agreed-upon parcel forthwith. No, there is no need to bother the curator, just retrieve the case and have one of your people bring it back as quickly as possible."

"This is highly unusual, Mrs. DeBourne," the clerk said. "I may need to-"

"I am going to say this once, very slowly," Karen announced in a calm and steady voice tinged with steel. "What is in the case is not what I agreed to send to you, and absolutely nobody needs to know what is in there. If you do not comply with my wishes immediately, then I will not send the Sargon to the museum, and you can explain to the curator and the museum's board why I changed my mind about one of the new centerpieces of the Mesopotamian display opening in a week. Now am... I... achieving... clarity?"

She could hear the woman swallow. "Y-yes, ma'am. I'll work it out right away."

"I thought you'd see things my way," Karen said in a deadpan voice before ending the call. She rested one hand on the desk, leaning forward and rubbing her face with the other one. If she didn't have grey hairs by the end of this fiasco, she'd be amazed.

And now to go and have a word with my beloved 'daughter'... she growled inside her head while she exited the office and marched back down the hallway.

***

Some minutes later, in the arcade...

"Mom," Alex said, standing up from behind the console he'd been hooking up. He'd been looking forward to this particular machine, since it hosted several versions of Street Fighter. His sweaty shirt clung to his solid, hard body. "I like to think it's pretty obvious that I'm not your daughter. I mean, look at me."

"Alex, I know that," his mother snapped, folding her arms under her bust and looking annoyed. "But I only have one child, that being you, and let's face it, Nancy may be as intellectually present as the world is flat, but I find it highly unlikely she would resort to abusion to keep a necklace that clashes with any outfit she would ever own, even a priceless one."

"I can't say I work out daily to keep from looking like a girl, but I like to think the results speak for themselves," Alex pointed out with a proud smile, lifting his arm and flexing his bicep, displaying the peaked bulge.

"Alex, put that away, I'm your mother," she said flatly, not interested in his showboating. "If not you, then who is my daughter?"

He shrugged. "Alexa?"

"I already ran into her, and she says she never gave anyone an attaché case," Karen sighed. "And now you're saying you didn't either."

"Didn't Tatyana say Tunde gave somebody something?" Alex queried.

"Yes, and if that's true, then he thought he was giving the ROM Sargon, but instead he gave them my underwear."

Alex blinked. "What?"

"It's perfectly simple, Alex," Karen iterated, getting annoyed with how obtuse her son was being. Was this revenge for making him convert decades of homemade porn? "The jewelry meant for the museum was given to Nancy by my daughter, and Tunde gave the ROM my lingerie."

"You don't have a daughter, mom," Alex insisted, trying to get the bottom of whatever his mother was on about. "Everybody knows that here."

"Well somebody obviously doesn't!" she said hotly, turning and marching out of the room before she flensed her son with a rusty spoon. Alex frowned at the floor, wondering what on earth was happening.

"I have a sister?" he whispered to no one in particular. Sometimes, it wouldn't surprise him with this family.

***

"Tunde!" Karen said rather loudly as she saw him across the grand foyer. The junior landscaper yelped, his feet leaving the ground for a split second before he reflexively hid himself behind an ornamental coatrack, trying not to shake in fear. It did little good.

"I can still see you," Karen pointed out, looking right at him, her golden-amber eyes making his brain hurt. "Front and center, please."

Timidly, the young man left his hiding spot and walked toward her, suppressing a tremble. Tatyana had been coming out of one of the utility rooms behind Karen, but when she saw Tunde (and her employer's body language from behind), she quietly turned and went the other way, leaving the young man to his fate. There had to be other junior landscapers out there needing work, didn't there? Tunde finally stood in front of Karen and nodded his head. "Ma'am?"

"It has been intimated to me that you gave an attaché case to a representative from the museum somewhere around an hour ago," she began, her arms folded under her bust. Given the size of her breasts, it was no doubt easier to fold her arms under them than across, Tunde thought, but then banished the matter from his mind before she realized what he was thinking. "Can you verify this?"

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am. He asked for the bag, and I gave it to him, roughly an hour ago."

"And where, if one might inquire, did you get this particular bag from?" she queried, tilting her head to one side.

Tunde indicated he should follow her, and made his way across the foyer, pointing to the ornate, marble-topped credence table. "Here, ma'am. Ready to be dispatched."

"Tunde," Karen groaned, pulling her hand down her face, her earlier worry having been confirmed. Thank God she hadn't put on foundation or makeup yet. "That wasn't the Sargon, that was my underwear!"

He thought about for some moments before the length of time he was silent became dangerous. "Why was your underwear in the foyer, ma'am?"

"I was giving it to a friend's husband, but they got the Sargon," she lamented.

Tunde seemed confused. "Who gave them this Sargon?"

"My daughter."

"You have a daughter now?" he asked, his eyes wide. This job was full of surprises.

"No, I don't."

"But you just said-"

"Tunde, I know what I said, I was there," she snapped, trying to not glare. "Focus, man."

"Sorry," he said hastily, more confused than ever. "But as I said, I gave him the case and then thought no further of it. I was not aware of the other underwear bag."

Karen took a deep breath. "A courier from the ROM will be returning with the attaché case containing my intimate attire. If you see him at the door, return the case to the library and have me informed immediately. Uyezwa?"

He swallowed again. "Ngiyaquonda."

She cocked her head off toward the east wing, indicating he was dismissed. Tunde made his exit very rapidly. Karen scowled at the foyer floor, her arms folded under her bust and tapping her foot when she heard a commotion down the hallway. It seemed to be coming from Theresa's kitchen. Voices arguing.

"No! Stop that at once!"

"But I ams so close! I just need to adjust-"

"Get away from my baking powder with that substance, you little monster!"

"I am only needing to see if the reaction is-"

THOOMMMP!

What sounded like a muffled explosion rung through the hall, followed by billowing clouds of powdery white flour bursting out of the kitchen and covering everything in the hallway that it touched. Karen watched silently, stricken dumb by the sight.

Silence followed for some seconds before Freja, covered head to toe in flour, dashed out of the kitchen, her eyes wide with fear with a flour-covered Theresa hard on her heels, face contorted in fury while she was swinging a heavy rolling pin over her head.

"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, I AMS SWEARING!" Freja howled in panic.

"I'LL SHOW YOU AN ACCIDENT!" raged the chef, puffs of flour escaping her mouth. "GET BACK HERE, YOU PINT-SIZED TERRORIST!"

As they thundered down the hall, Theresa's hip bumped a plinth on which sat a very old marble bust in the image of Rainier Blackwell, a prominent member of the family. He wasn't one of the patriarchs, so he wasn't in the Hall of Ancestors, but he had a place of honour all the same.

Not any longer.

Karen watched in slow-motion dread as the plinth rocked back and forth, with Rainier wobbling perilously before pitching over the side. Karen couldn't look away while the three-hundred-year-old bust plummeted toward the floor.

And then Trilby dived out of nowhere, crashing to the ground on her front while catching the bust in her hands, like a wide receiver desperately hauling in a long bomb.

Karen's eyes fixed once again on Freja and Theresa as they sped by, still locked in a death chase. Freja deked right, heading for the open front doors as the rolling pin missed caving in her skull by millimeters. She was out and down the steps like a powdery flash of lightning, still followed close by Karen's incensed chef, howling for her blood, and yelling that she intended to use it in a soup.

She slowly blinked and then looked back over at Trilby, who was now sitting back against the wall, hyperventilating as she tried to control her diaphragm and not start crying. The bust of Rainier was sitting in her lap and she clutched it possessively, making sure nothing else could happen to it. Trilby slowly stood, still breathing loudly, and gingerly set the bust back on its plinth. Once he was in place, she leaned an arm against the wall to brace herself and take deep breaths, facing away from Karen, and then slowly walked into the dissipating clouds of flour that now blanketed the western hall. Karen wondered if her maid would ever emerge.

Just then, Ari came in the front door, seeming very confused. He paused, turned and glanced back outside, where Freja and Theresa had just run, and then looked at Karen, his expression a wry one.

"Is there some kind of Kung Fu Hustle remake happening that I don't know about?" he asked.

Karen turned and stomped up the grand staircase without another word, ignoring Dave, who was coming down the staircase.

Ari scratched his head and looked at his co-worker. "Was it something I said?"

Dave just shrugged helplessly.

***

"Where is Glenda?" Karen asked as she strode into the room on the third floor. She'd heard voices there and she found Valentina, Marie, and Tatyana in a solarium, discussing plans of some sort. "I have an errand for her to run."

"She is out of town, ma'am," Tatyana replied, turning and facing Karen, her hands folded in front of her lap while Valentina curtsied. It was somewhat strange to see her in a regular housekeeper's outfit, but since the bishop was coming this afternoon, it was absolutely necessary. "She took Mister Winson to see some sort of specialist in Port Credit, you may recall. They left well before dawn."

"But of course," Karen grumbled, frowning at the floor. "The only two sane people in this entire household, and they've both gone AWOL."

Tatyana raised an eyebrow at the statement.

"I'll tell you ladies what I told Tunde," the matriarch continued. "If, by some miracle, the two attaché cases are retrieved from their errant recipients, they are to be deposited in the grand library and I am to be informed immediately. I will try to deal with the matter from there. I am on more deadlines than the New Yorker's front desk, but this simply cannot go on. A friend's sanity is at stake on one hand, and a priceless artifact determines the success of a new exhibit. Are we clear?"

The seneschal and the botanist both nodded readily. Val looked like she was about to say something, but Tatyana hustled her maid out of the room quickly. She didn't need to be down a staff member so soon before the housewarmings. Not to mention that getting blood stains out of the wooden walls and the carpets would be a bear. This left Marie in the room with Karen, and the Breton woman suddenly felt very exposed- no doubt because she'd been hiding behind the more stout Tatyana up to that point, hoping to not be noticed. She smiled nervously at the tall, golden-eyed matriarch.

"Excuzit ac'hanon," she murmured in her native language, trying to sneak by Karen. "I have to be anywhere else..."

Alone again, Karen scowled at the floor. It was as if people were trying to avoid her. Granted, she might be a little bit on edge, what with the house blowing up, shorting out, getting covered in flour, and a priceless artifact and her underwear going missing. Not to mention the further indignity of having her husband's semen squirted all over her face from her handmaid's vagina. She figured she was allowed to be somewhat irked with how this day was going. She sighed and returned to her office, sitting down in her wide, comfortable work chair, looking at the screen rather blankly.

She felt decidedly uninspired.

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, trying to center herself. She needed to get this proposal done, but she was so very distracted.

Michael...

A wicked smile played over her face, and she rose quickly and wiggled over to shut the door to her office. Before she had returned to her seat, she was already shimmying out of her clothes. Naked, she sat in her chair again and reached down beside the desk for something. She pulled out a long item that folded in on itself and had a detachable clamp at the base. It was something she'd bought recently.

A selfie stick.

But it wasn't just any old selfie stick. To quote Alli, this was a 'super-duper-ooper-shmooper' selfie stick. It was made of strong materials and had articulated joints along its considerable length, allowing for pics from many angles. It was also telescopic, useful for close-ups or full body shots. She felt warm and tingly as she fixed the clamp to her desk and put her cellphone in its little cradle at the top before exploring different ideas for posing, and different angles. She didn't have time to take many pictures, so she resolved to get one perfect one to send to him, just to remind her mighty husband what was waiting for him back home.