8

It was a shame that on days she did not have college classes that she had to carry out the chores her kids did not do. Lily was actually and surprisingly becoming quite self-sufficient, but neither Jimmy nor Henry ever picked up their dirty clothes or laundry. Lily was actually doing her own laundry last night, throwing other laundry in the washer to fill out the load when she wanted her old sweats washed. Henry meanwhile had used three towels and had left them on the floor from the bathroom to his bedroom. Claudia had started the laundry, but now she had bed sheets to do. She had stripped and taken care of Jimmy and Henry’s beds, and skipping her own to do another day, she headed for her daughter’s room. Her foot tapped open the door and she advanced welcomed by pop stars on posters and a mild scattering of stuffed animals left behind from childhood. More interested in the bed, Claudia took one pillow then the other, pulling off the pillowcases and tossing the pillows in the big chair in the corner. She then removed the duvet covering the bed, pulling it back to the blanket and sheets. In all, this job took about ten to twelve minutes. She sprayed a scented Lysol substitute over the mattress to freshen it then turned to pick another fresher set of sheets to replace them. The fitted sheet went first, then the top sheet, but Claudia could only do one side at a time. She got the right side near the door then wandered around to the left side of the bed by the window. During these chores, she was usually reviewing her college lessons in her head, but on this occasion, she was distracted. On the left side of the bed, her eyes were suddenly gravitated by the sight of a strange bend in Lily’s metal headboard. It was cast iron, five metal rods from a circle supporting the headboard from the base holding the box springs to the top support beam, but only one of them was not quite so straight. She had never noticed that before! It was bent and twisted out of alignment. The confused mother in Claudia felt her curiosity piqued. She tried to bend it back, but whatever had bent it was many times stronger than her. She sat looking it, placing her own hand neatly into the shape of it. It looked and felt as if a very powerful person had bent it!

“Claudia?” Sean’s voice resonated from the downstairs.

“Up here…” Claudia called down to him. She rose up from the bed smoothing out the wrinkles she had placed in the sheets while sitting on the bed. When she came around the bed, Sean had trotted up the stairway and was standing in the doorway of his daughter’s room decorated in modern female teenager. He looked at his sexy wife in her t-shirt and shorts and beamed like a young kid again.

“Oh, is my sexy chambermaid doing the housekeeping?” He engaged in a blend of role-making and romantic banter with his wife. “Maybe I ought to come home early more often…” His hands pulled her closer from around the waist, and he kissed her neck. Claudia just giggled at his goofy romantics and took a new blanket to fix her daughter’s bed.

“What are you doing here?” She asked her husband.

“It was a bit slow.” Sean helped her a bit with the blanket. “I left Eddie in charge.” He paused a bit. “Hope I don’t regret it.”

“Hope we don’t regret it…” Claudia shared his disdain for Eddie. Sean helped her pull the blanket up and tuck it under the mattress.

“That Brad O’Keefe is getting weirder and weirder!” Sean looked around his daughter’s room as he made conversation. “He came by the Red Boot this morning and was asking me all these crazy questions about Lily.”

“What kind of questions?” Claudia had pulled back Lily’s duvet and was using her hand to press out the wrinkles.

“Like where she was born, if there was anything unusual about her birth and whether she was adopted?” Sean made the same kind of confused and perplexed face he had made as Brad was questioning him. “I mean, where is he getting this stuff?”

“Well,” Claudia moved around the bed toward her husband. “Brad has always been a little different.” She recalled his preference and passion for all things scientific and science fiction.

“Yeah,” Sean grimaced tiredly. “But if he’s this weird, I don’t want him hanging round Lily any more.”

“Uh-huh….” Claudia paused before lifting her basket of bed sheets. “Speaking of weird, Sean, have you noticed this?” She set aside the basket of bed sheets and directed him to the twisted rod. “What would cause that?”

“Well, it’s…” Sean tried bending it back, but he couldn’t do it. The bed headboard was made from tempered steel; it was not meant to be bent. “What the!! How could… Damn! How the freaking heck did she do that?”

“That’s what I was thinking!” Claudia exasperatingly confessed. “It looks as if she bent it with her bare hands!”

“Bent it with her bare hands??” Sean scoffed at that. “Claudia, she’s not the Hulk!”

“Then what do you think caused it Sean?”

“Well…” Sean looked at it, tried bending it himself, grunted a bit and noticed his hand barely felt in the curve that formed when it was bent. It had to be bent by someone with small hands… like Lily… “Maybe, she… kicked it?”

“Kicked it? Kicked it??” Claudia scoffed at that. “Sean… That is bent! That is bent by someone with hands my size. Someone like with hands like Lily!”

“What do you want me to say?” Sean retaliated back in this strong discussion in his daughter’s bedroom. “Do you want me to say Lily bent it? That’s crazy! It’s just…. Bent a bit…” Claudia looked at him, gasped a moment and turned round.

“Sean,” Claudia headed down the back stairs to the kitchen ready to start the bed sheets. “Haven’t you noticed that Lily’s been a bit different the last few days? She’s not quite so….” She struggled for the right word. “Abrasive?””

“No, I’d say she’s not quite so….” Sean also struggled for the right word. “Bratty.”

“Exactly!!” Claudia was glad to be in sync with him over the same subject. “She has been much better behaved since…. Since the night of her mysterious boob-job! You know…” Claudia reacted as though she had solved a mystery. “I don’t think she’s our daughter. I think she’s possessed!”

Sean turned around from taking a beer from the refrigerator. He looked at her lost from that line of reasoning.

“Okay, that’s just asinine.” Claudia rejected that idea herself. “I mean, you ever read that that story about the two look-alikes who exchanged others lives? I mean, what if… our Lily found a girl that looked just like her… except with a bigger chest and they switched places. We got the nice Lily, and our Lily is now living a life of wealth and leisure somewhere else!!!”

“And the nice Lily just happens to bench press ten tons; that’s brilliant, Nancy Drew!!!” Sean mocked her stream of deduction. He stopped mugging and had another insight. “Wait a second…. That kind of fits in with what Brad was leading up to…” He started finally seeing the pattern the O’Keefe kid tried to tell him about.

“Exactly!!!” Claudia started realizing how smart she really was. “We got someone else’s daughter!”

“I say we enjoy it while we can before the real Lily gets back!!!” Sean sipped his beer as his eldest son Jimmy came through the back door into the kitchen. He dropped his backpack of schoolbooks on the floor and wandered over the refrigerator for a drink. Claudia came up behind him.

“Jimmy,” She wandered up to him and braced against the counter island as Sean sipped his beer. “Have you noticed anything weird about your sister?”

“You mean besides her new 40DD?” Jimmy took a can of soda to sip from the refrigerator.

“Besides that…”

“Well….” Jimmy also took a piece of chicken left over from take-out a few days ago. “She aced her history test today in school. Sister Helen accused her of cheating and forced her to take it again under observation.” Jimmy paused for a sip of soda. “And she aced it… again!” Claudia pounded the counter and turned to Sean convinced.

“That is not our daughter!” She declared out loud. Lily was just not that a model student.

“But two Lilys….” Sean still struggled with the idea. He drifted over to the kitchen table and sat down sipping his beer. Jimmy looked at his mother spinning around to the washing machine with a flourish. She had just solved a family mystery on mere deduction and was quite proud of herself but a bit spooked of any girl who could bend cast iron steel.

“What’s this about?” Jimmy asked.

“Your mother doesn’t think we’ve got the right Lily.” Sean paused with his beer and gestured with it. “She thinks she’s an imposter.”

“Oh, it’s Lily alright…” Jimmy rolled his eyes and started to turn away. Claudia looked up at his remark and dropped a sheet from the dryer. Sean looked back.

“Jimmy, Jimmy…” Claudia raced around the counter in the center of the kitchen and tugged him back into the room. “Wait, what do you mean, it’s Lily.”

“Yeah, how can you tell?” Sean asked him.

“Because Lily has that tattoo on her back and it's still there!” Jimmy answered and headed on his way. Claudia lightly pounded her head for not thinking of that. Forget the imposter theory, the possessed theory was actually stating to sound credible. She groaned at herself and sat down across from Sean. He tipped back his beer and finished it off. Claudia pushed her hair together on her head out of frustration.

“What is going on with that girl?” She mumbled.

“By the way…” Sean thought out loud. “Where is that girl?”

The local West Brighton Business Auction on Long Island met about twice a year to auction off real estate captured in police drug raids and stores that had gone out of business. These auctions usually ran about two hours but were open to the public. It was a good place to acquire cheap real estate to turn over at a profit. Not a lot of people turned up for these things. The properties they tried to get rid of were usually derelict buildings, vacant lots or ruined stores in crime and drug-ridden neighborhoods.

“We are next once again trying to audition off parcel thirty-seven, the old Moseby Street warehouse.” The auctioneer looked across the room. It was not a full house, but a few people appeared here looking for nearly decent pieces of property to purchase. “This location has been sitting empty for twenty years, and is on a worthy piece of real estate eight blocks from Richmond Street. The place is in a difficult neighborhood, but the building is sound enough to be restored. It rests upon an acre and a half of commercial property with a small but decent loading area. The old warehouse was built in 1888 and is still partially to code. Of course, we are also required to mention the…” He forced a small laugh. “Alleged hauntings once reported there. We have since reduced it to the lowest price was have had in years, Thirty-eight thousand dollars. Any takers?”

“Fifty thousand dollars.” Lily suddenly stood up from the seated participants with her true intentions obscured. This was going to take nearly all the money from her psychic playing of the horses and stock market. The auctioneer looked at her and back to the representative of the real estate company handling the old deserted warehouse. They were eager to finally be rid of it despite the money they were losing on it.

“Sold!”

She got the property.