Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

I’m Pink Lady Apple Yeggs and my friend, and brother-in-law, Deviled Yeggs suggested that I record each project that I set up in the hopes of reforming the people who continue to work for Lily the Pink Enterprises.  If for no other reason, it would show how God is at work.

Missy escorted a young lady into my office.  Missy asked if she should stay.  I waved her out of the room.  If this woman was crazy, I had PawPaw and Grannie Fannie who were taking care of the children.  In a pinch, one could take the children and the other could help me, but the young lady sat smiling at me.

Since she was not saying anything, I offered, “Miss, I do not recognize you.  You are not an employee.  You are not someone from the mission unless you recently arrived.  Dot Com always informs me before they arrive.  My open-door policy is for those two categories of people, but I am willing to talk to you if you will state your name and why you are here.  I will have Missy escort you out if you are a reporter.”  As if on cue, Missy came back and took her position, leaning against the wall.

Missy said, “This person’s ride is sitting in a running car out front.  I have Julia watching her.  Julia can handle herself these days.”

I made eye contact with my unnamed guest.

The young lady said, “Mom, I need a job, and I hear that you give favors to people from the mission.  MawMaw and I may be there soon, but we still have the house.  I have an accounting degree, just like you, Mom.  Please, I need a job for MawMaw and I to save the house.”

I coughed.  I fumbled with my phone and Gwen came through our connecting door.  Gwen did her best thinking as company president while cooking something or just sitting in the kitchen.  She did not have many steps to reach my side.

I turned to her, “Gwen, this young lady thinks that I am her mother.  You and I have been inseparable between about two years ago and way back right after my mother left for Florida.  Do you remember me being pregnant more than two times?”

Gwen shook her head.  “You gave birth to Boaz when all the nightmare started.  You gave birth to Pink Sparkle, almost exactly three months ago.  Otherwise, you never slept with anyone in between.”

The young lady said, “You recently gave birth to a daughter?  I was not aware of that?”

I responded, “You have not done your homework well if this is a scam.  If it is a crazy way of getting a job interview, it makes me uncomfortable.  Why do you say that I gave birth to you?  You know.  I would remember something like that.  A guy might leave his sperm laying around anywhere, but a woman had nine months to imprint that memory on her brain.”

The young lady was about to answer when Kanok ran over to introduce everyone.  Grannie Fannie and PawPaw came over with the little ones.  Kanok ran and patted each person except the babies as she said, “Mamma Missy.  Mommy Pinkie.  Auntie Gwen.  PawPaw and Joon.  Gannie Fannie and Spa-Cool.  I am Kanok.”  Kanok started blinking, waiting for our guest to respond.

Our guest finally chuckled and leaned down toward Kanok.  “Hi, Kanok.  I’m Pink Pearl Apple.  Am I your sister?”

Kanok said, “Nope!  Spa-Cool is my sissah.  Boaz and Joon ah Bubbas.”

I clarified, “Kanok has a bit of trouble with her “R” sound, but she has it right.  Kanok and Joon are adopted.  Boaz and Sparkle are Scrambled and my biological children.  And Kanok left out Otto and Poached who are Stepsons.  But as for you, how old are you?”  She gave her birthdate.

Gwen said, “I can confirm that Pink Lady was in this room.  A bed where the play area is.  Her office where it still is now.  And she only left this room to go to the restroom through the connecting door or on beyond to supervise cider operations.  She was not allowed to go anywhere else, although all this campus belongs to her.  Since giving birth to Boaz, she was not pregnant until about a year ago.  What gives you reason that Pink Lady is your mother?”

Pink Pearl cleared her throat, “MawMaw told me that she has taken care of me since Pink Lady had to give me up.  That was before I can remember, about 3-4 years old, but what I can remember of you is your eyes.”

I stared at her for moment.  It seemed impossible, but she looked like me when I was roughly her age.  The age she gave would put her about three years younger than Boaz.  She claimed to be my child and she looked like me, but that could be from good plastic surgery.

The door burst open.  Julia was escorting another familiar looking woman.  She was in her early seventies, I thought, but she looked like a carbon copy of my mother, Guinevere Apple.  I had seen photos of my mother shortly before she became emaciated from the disease that took her life.  If I did not have proof that my mother was dead, this could be her.  I was looking at an older mother look alike and a younger me look alike.  Then, the silence was broken by PawPaw, “Vieve?”

The older woman asked, “Ash?”

If this was a television show, this is the part where they either break for the long-protracted station identification or where the words “To Be Continued” come across the screen.  My blood had turned cold looking at these two figures that looked far too familiar.  But what comes after your blood running cold?  Does your blood freeze when the older man and woman in the room know each other by name?

I tried to clear my throat, but nothing happened.  I finally was able to say, “Someone needs to do some explaining.  Julia make sure this woman is comfortably seated and then return to your post.”  Julia did so, and she shrugged at her boss, Missy.  Missy simply smiled and nodded.  I croaked out a few words, “Daddy, why don’t you start, before we get to … ummm.  Vieve, is it?”  She nodded.

PawPaw was almost crying.  Just as he was getting his composure, Sparkle started crying.  Fannie got my wrap, and gave me Sparkle.  After three months, I was well practiced in feeding her while interviewing people in my office.  I nodded that PawPaw could start.

PawPaw said, “Before I get started, I confess that I only cheated on your mother one time, Pinkie.”

Kanok slapped him on the leg and said, “Mommie Pinkie!”

I said, “Kanok, be quiet and let PawPaw talk.  You know he calls me Pinkie, because I am his daughter.  He does not have to say the Mommie part.”

Kanok said, “Mommie Pinkie, I love you.”  And then she ran back to her toys.  Grannie Fannie wandered over to try to keep her occupied.  This might not be a conversation that a little mynah bird needed to hear.  Kanok tried to repeat everything she heard.

PawPaw said, “When you were born, Pinkie, I had to go do my job.  This criminal had already been given a warning.  I had to terminate him.  Guinevere and I always had a day or two of passionate love making afterwards.  I had to get that feeling out of my system.  It always bothered me, but that was my job, and I was good at it.  But you had just been born.  Guinevere said for me to, as she put it, ‘Find someone else.’  I wanted to stay faithful, but I had no idea how to get rid of the anxiety inside my chest except through love making.  I went to a bar on the far side of town.  Guinevere told me not to go to that side of town.  She had a doppelganger down there that was bad news.  I just wanted to get drunk, but looking back on it, getting drunk would have been the wrong thing to do.  It’s odd looking back on it.  I had a strange moral code back then.  Cheating on your mother that one time has torn me up ever since, but killing people gave me an anxious feeling that went away after a couple of days of wild passion.  But on about the third Scotch on the rocks at the bar, Genevieve walked into the bar.  She said that it looked like I needed a friend.  I looked at her and thought I was seeing my wife, but Vieve had some wear marks your mother did not have, a much harder life.  I followed her to her house, and we stayed in the bedroom for four days.  We hardly got any sleep, but we passed out a few times.  Vieve had a couple of bottles of Scotch, and we finished them both off.  At one point, I fell asleep, and it was nearly twenty-four hours later when I awoke.  I walked back to the bar, got in my car and drove back to your mother.  Your mother said, ‘You met my doppelganger.  You could have picked anyone in town, but you did it with her.’  That’s all I know.  I never went back to that part of town unless it was to bury evidence.”

I turned to Vieve and said, “That says you know each other, but it leaves a lot to fill in.  Daddy and Mom were both adopted by Ambrosia or her father.  They married each other since they were not biologically related.  So how do you become a doppelganger and where does Pink Pearl Apple fit in, since all Pearl knows is what you have told her.”

Vieve nodded, “Let’s go back further. I was not Guinevere’s doppelganger.  We were identical twins.  Our parents died when we were five or six.  I am ten minutes older than my sister.  My parents thought the names were perfect for twins, and they were quickly shortened to Vieve and Vere.  I took my parent’s death hard.  I rebelled.  I acted out.  I was a terror at the orphanage.  Vere slipped into a fantasy world where she really was King Arthur’s Guinevere.  She took on an elegant aura.  The orphanage wanted us to be adopted together.  They thought my behavioral issues would get worse if we were split, but it was that problem that made us unable to be adopted, unless Vere went alone.  She was adopted and I went into foster care.  I settled down a little bit, but then about age thirteen, my foster father started abusing me.  Vere would have known.  We were telepathic about certain sensations.  Have you ever had the big ‘O’ and you were not having sex?  I have, when Vere did.  I am sure she felt mine.  After a couple of years of the abuse, they basically sold me off to my foster father’s brother.  I could do some minimal cooking.  I could keep the house clean, and I did not mind being left alone for an extended time.  He would pretend I was his ‘wife’, but he was a long-haul trucker.  I was fifteen years old, and I lived in a big house all by myself.  When I became twenty years old, he failed to come home.  He had been killed in a wreck.  He had given me everything in the will.  When the money started running out, I got a job at a grocery store.  I did not sell my body, but I occasionally brought guys back to the house for some fun, but Ashmead was different.”

She stopped to take a breath.  Gwen walked out and came back with a tray of cider.  I drank a non-alcoholic one along with Missy, but the rest drank the original flavor of Lily the Pink.

Vieve continued, “I had always been careful.  I never got pregnant, but with Ash, I threw caution to the wind.  He was my sister’s husband.  She had just delivered a week or so before, and I was not allowed to visit.  Why not have fun with my sister’s husband without protection?  Well, I got pregnant.  Our true family name on our birth certificate was Cripp.  I gave birth to Cripp’s Pink Apple nine months later.  Since Pink Lady is a trademark of apples.  The true variety name is Cripp’s Pink.  You just pay more for the trademark.  So, to me, my little baby girl was Pink Lady Apple.  The same father.  Identical twins for the two mothers.  The same thing, just not the trademark.”

Pink Pearl started to sniffle, “So, I’m not Pink Lady’s biological daughter, like you said?”

Vieve shook her head, “DNA wise, it might be hard to tell.  Like clones of each other, but you were inside the womb of Cripp’s Pink, not Pink Lady.  My Pink started doing tricks in high school.  Word got out to Baldwyn Apple who was rounding up all the prostitutes in Tracy.  He came to our house and as soon as he saw my Pink, he said that taking her to the brothel would be a bad idea.  He bedded her once or twice each week.  She got pregnant and she died shortly after Pink Pearl was born.  There must have been something wrong that they did not catch in the hospital.  So, I have raised Pink Pearl ever since.  And I have told her that Pink Lady was her mother.  I am sorry for the deception, but you are alive, and my daughter has been dead quite some time.  Then recently, they forced me to retire from the grocery store.  My social security is not enough to pay for both of us to live off the money.  The house is mine, but there is no money to pay the taxes.  My foster parents are both gone too.  We were hoping Pearl’s recent accounting degree could get her a job here.”

I said, “Being honest would have been a good start.  Pearl will have to interview the comptroller, Thomasina Tatiana Tutor-Tarrant.  We call her Tommie Tat.  She has only one helper, Amara, who is from Nigeria, but she is a sophomore by now at T.R.U.S.T.  She needs an accountant so that she can help more with the satellite campus in Washington state.  I have helped as much as I can, and occasionally we have used a CPA firm, and I would rather give that money to charity, if we had the right people here.  What made you pick Accounting, Pearl?”

Pearl said, “I thumbed through the records and yearbooks to find your name.  And ever since I found you as an honor graduate from the university, I wanted to be just like my mother, but instead…  I have no idea what our relation is.”

I shrugged, “Everyone here calls me Mommie Pinkie, or Mommie Tinkie, since Kanok yelled that enough for a while.  So, does it really matter whether we are aunt and niece or whatever it might be?  Will you stay where you are if you get the job?  We have family-sized units in the apartment buildings down the street and we have some efficiency apartments here.”

Vieve nodded, “We would not want to impose.  With an entry level salary for Pearl, we could save the house.  It’s the only home I can remember, over fifty years there.  It is nothing like this place though.  And I hope I didn’t frighten Julia too much.  I was agitated.  I got out of the car and started pacing.  I think she saw me as a risk, but then I said that I was worried about my little Pearl, so she brought me in here.”

I nodded, “I am glad she did, or we might never have gotten to the bottom of this.  I cannot get over how much you look like Mom, and Pearl might look almost exactly like my college graduation picture.  I have an idea.  Do we have someone free to take these two family members on a tour?”

Gwen said, “I’ll go get some coveralls for each of them.  Joseline Johnson is available, I think.  She does not have classes today.  She is trained in the safety briefings, and she knows almost everyone.”

I turned back to Vieve and Pearl, “Were you planning on going anywhere after your job interview today?”

Vieve shook her head.  “No, just back home to have a grilled-cheese sandwich and a can of tomato soup.  They let me take the bent cans home.  Or they did before they laid me off for being too old.”

PawPaw said, “You do not look too old to me.  You look just as you did when we first met.”

Vieve returned a warm smile, “My Pink and then Pink Pearl have kept me feeling young.  I hope I see more of you.”

PawPaw said, “Most days, I am right over there playing with the grandchildren.”

Vieve said, with desire in her voice, “I never forgot you, Ash.  You were special.”

I whispered, “Daddy, go get your coveralls on and go with them on the tour.”  Both Vieve and my father brightened.

Credits

I have known twins that could feel some of each other’s sensations.  They knew when the other was anxious, in trouble, etc.  But that telepathy let Vere know the Vieve was with her husband.

I cannot remember which famous “Bubba” was nicknamed Bubba because his younger sister had trouble saying brother. Since Kanok has problems with the “R”, a letter not found in the Thai language except as a rolled “R”, I thought Bubba would work.