Lightning Strikes Twice Read online

  Lightning Strikes Twice

  By Erik Schubach

  Copyright © 2014 by Erik Schubach

  Self publishing

  P.O. Box 523

  Nine Mile Falls, WA 99026

  Cover Photo © 2014 Zoom Team / ShutterStock.com license

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, blog, or broadcast.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-9911072-8-5

  Chapter 1 – Going Home

  I stared out over London and took a deep breath and smiled a little. It was time; I was through being a coward. I sipped my lemonade, and my head swiveled when I heard my front door open.

  My best friend here in England, Candi, came walking into my penthouse condo at One Hyde Park near Knightsbridge, the only real estate I had left after my divorce. She called out, “Vicky? Where are you you silly bird?” I had to grin, I remember the day I met Candice all those years ago when I had transferred from Washington State University to Oxford in my Junior year, like it was yesterday.

  Well, I didn’t have a choice as that is just how my brain works. I’m triple cursed… or blessed… with an immeasurable IQ, an eidetic memory, and a mind that can’t shut off. I know how it sounds, but I’m not bragging about it… did I mention the curse part? I’d give anything not to have these “gifts” as my parents put it.

  My mind won’t stop working, and I am always thinking about dozens of things at all times. I can’t help it sometimes with all the noise in my head. It got so bad once when I was twelve that I had a mental breakdown. My parents had me committed to a psychiatric ward and paid for the best psychologists around.

  In the end it was my father, Frank Davenport, that helped me with a breakthrough. He wondered if I could distract my always moving mind and he came up with some mental exercises for me. He calls it creating white noise. My dad is my hero. He’s not a doctor or a psychiatrist, but he succeeded where they all failed. He showed me that I just have to create more white noise

  He has me concentrating on solving PI. I’m a little over seventy-two billion digits in since I started his exercises back then… 8-3-2-7-9-5-0-2-8-8 He said to do as many things like that to clear my mind of the unwanted thoughts as I could. Some of my favorite things to do are to recite random names from the phone books from around the world, never duplicating a name once, or recite facts about animals since I love animals!

  I try to concentrate on all of that white noise and not allow myself to think. It makes me a little excitable and act a bit scatterbrained, but it helps me to drown out the noise in my head I don’t want to hear. It got me out of that godforsaken institute. The worst six month of my life!

  I had escaped to Oxford from Seattle because I had done a boneheaded maneuver and found myself falling in love with my two best friends there. Mia and Vee Jacobs. They were so wonderful together and the most accepting people I have ever met.

  I forced myself to be around them and their baby girl, my goddaughter Abbey, and never reveal my true feelings. But my heart couldn’t take it when Vee’s cystic fibrosis was slowly killing her and taking her from Mia and me. So I ran… like a coward. I ran to England to finish school and try to start a new life here and forget about the women I loved. It didn’t work of course. It is impossible for me to forget anything.

  It took everything I had inside of me to go be with Mia and help her through the pain of Vee’s death just after senior year. I had to be strong for Mia; she was broken and her pain will probably always be there. I couldn’t show her that half my heart had died with Vee as well. After the funeral service at their house and a few days of making sure that Mia was going to be ok, I ran again. Back to England because every fiber of my being ached that I could never tell Mia how I felt about her, especially after the loss of the love of her life.

  I’ve never been back home since then, not even to visit my parents. They have hopped the pond to visit me a few dozen times, but I just couldn’t bring myself to be in the same city as the object of my affection, I was a married woman for god’s sake; it wouldn’t be right, and I shouldn’t be thinking of Mia in that way to begin with.

  I tried to make a life for myself here. I found someone I thought I could love. Beatrice… I mean, I did love her, but not in that soul affirming way that I should have. We were married almost sixteen years before the divorce two years ago. I knew it was coming, especially since I knew she was having an affair with her personal assistant, Todd, but I never said anything. He even knocked her up. But I feel like a terrible person because I feel like I was just using her for more white noise so I wouldn’t think of Mia.

  God, I know, it sounds like I should be committed again. But that’s me, Victoria Davenport, headcase. Damn, now I’m thinking about her again. 2-0-8-9-9-8 Bernard G. Linquist, Deadra V. Taylor, Jacques Vanderstien. Black-tailed prairie dogs have small, close-knit families called coteries. I took a deep breath and looked into my condo through the open glass doors on the veranda and called out, “Out here Candi.”

  I smiled as I saw her make her way through my flat and out into the crisp fall air. She has come a long way from the almost terminally shy girl who people called the ‘mouse girl.’ The years have been kind to her and she always looks spectacular in her smart business suits. She and her husband, Leighton Birch, started up an accounting firm after he graduated from Oxford. She is now a sharp and insightful businesswoman with a confident air. I grinned at the thought of Leighton’s receding hairline, I thought it made him look distinguished.

  I tilted my head at Candi, taking in her new blouse and earrings. “That’s a cute top.” I poured a fresh squeezed lemonade from the iced pitcher on my patio table and slid it over to her. She took it and sat across from me as I just looked out over the city that I have come to view as my second home.

  She smiled one of her endearing half smiles, “Thank you. I’m sure you didn’t ring me just to compliment my blouse.”

  I rolled my eyes playfully at her. “No… I… I have news.”

  She cocked her head to the side, some of her frosted, strawberry blonde hair slid over her collar and hung in her face. I took a deep breath. “I… I bought an art gallery.”

  Her smile bloomed. “That’s brill! You’ve always had an obsession for them. I don’t know how many you do business consulting for and you were a curator for a time. Where is it? That cute one over by Notting Hill?”

  I cringed. This was going to be harder than I thought. I have lots of casual friends here in London. But I can count on one hand… no, one finger, my good friends that I let in on all my secrets and hopes and dreams. That’s Candice. I exhaled and whispered, “It’s the Downtown Seattle Gallery.”

  She blinked at me. It took a moment for it to sink in. I saw the whole gambit of emotions swirl through her eyes as they started to tear up. But the one she latched onto surprised me and made me realize how much I loved my friend.

  She covered her mouth in surprise and excitement, then she squealed and hopped up and hugged me. She pushed away and held me at arm’s length and whispered. “My god Vicky. You’re going home!” Tears started well
ing up in my eyes too as we hugged again. Gawd I was going to miss Candi when I left.

  Chapter 2 – Preparation

  The next few weeks were spent finalizing the purchase of the gallery, and having my lawyers speaking with their lawyers. Closing was taking forever and there were mountains of paperwork to go through. With any luck, the final papers would be signed the next day, then I’d have the escrow release the four million pounds and I will be the proud owner of an art gallery. I grinned, I have always had a soft spot for the arts.

  I could easily imagine the stress it would cause an artist when a gallery some of their works are displayed at suddenly changed hands. So I took the time to set up video conferences with each artist who had works for sale in the gallery, to personally assure them that their contracts and consignment agreements would remain unchanged. I also requested catalogs of their works and options on future works. I wanted to keep them happy. That was how to run a successful gallery, by keeping the artists happy.

  One main reason I chose to make an offer on the Downtown Seattle Gallery over the other galleries for sale in the region that I still, to this day, call home, was that they displayed local artists works almost exclusively. I wanted to carry on that tradition and showcase artists from the Pacific Northwest.

  I put on my reading glasses and then pulled them back off to gaze at them a moment. They reminded me that I wasn’t getting any younger. I had to start wearing them a couple years ago as my eyesight started getting worse. I’ve noticed lots of little things like that as I approached forty. My eyesight, the little wrinkles in the corners of my eyes when I smiled, the laugh lines at the corners of my mouth that weren’t there before.

  By the time I actually became forty last month I had come to accept them, to some extent I think they made me look a little more mature and god forbid, sexy. I’ve always looked young for my age being such a tiny woman at five foot nothing, so this was a good thing.

  I looked out into the night from my veranda, at the glowing city lights. I slipped the glasses back on and started flipping through the pages of the current contracts for upcoming works as fast as I could turn the pages, committing them to memory, when I froze. I stared at the page, was this some sort of sign? Some cosmic joke I hadn’t been let in on? I smiled at the name on the contract for an exclusive display of her work next month. Her stuff was always in the highest demand, but she almost always deferred her viewings to local Seattle galleries. I ran my fingers across the name as I read it out loud, “Mia Jacobs… two Jacob’s Effect canvases to be delivered on Christmas eve for a special Christmas showing.”

  Damn it, that just got me thinking of Mia again and thousands of memories flooded through my mind. I found her little quirks the most-endearing things. Things like her OCD and her stuttering just made her more adorable. I have heard through the grapevine that it has been over three years since her last Turrets episode.

  One thing most people don’t know about Mia Jacobs is that she can see patterns and understand equations instantly in a way that rivals my own grasp on math. She… focus Vicky! 1-7-0-6-7-9. Ceilia L. Bernard, Harrison D. Dennison. A baby Chinese water deer is so tiny that it can fit in the palm of your hand.

  It took a bite of my turkey sandwich and chuckled at my concession, it was Thanksgiving in the States today after-all. Then I continued flipping through the contracts. It was a little light, they must not do a lot of legwork to get new consignments. I think they were just banking on the prestige of the gallery and resting on their laurels and depending upon the talent coming to them. That can be detrimental to any business. Well, I guess they were feeling it, that’s why they started taking offers on the gallery.

  That was all going to change. I’d get on the curator’s ass to engage the art community and solicit local artists and engage upcoming talent at the university level to keep my gallery at the forefront of their minds. You never know who will develop into the next big thing in the art world.

  I pulled up a new email from the seller. Oh good, that would be the personnel records I requested might as well commit them to memory, I wanted to speak with each employee personally via video chat to ensure them that their jobs were safe to prevent any pre-handover exodus. I’m pretty sure I won’t be the curator’s favorite person when I push them to engage the art community more, but I need a strong right arm to get things done. It would be more like a partnership than an employee boss paradigm.

  I opened the attachment and glanced at the list and eeeped with a grin. You’ve got to be shitting me! I stopped what I was doing right away as I pulled up the curator’s records with a smile on my face. I committed her record to memory and absently walked to the railing of the veranda and pulled out my mobile. No, my cell. I’m getting all British-ized here. Oh, I’d so make an awesome Brit!

  I sometimes catch myself saying ‘bloody’, or ‘loo’, and the like at times. I guess some speech patterns and mannerisms would have to wiggle their way in from the culture after two decades. I’ll have to like, wear a U.S. flag for a shirt for like a month when I get back home, to get re-Americanized. I had pulled off my glasses and caught myself absently chewing on the earpiece again.

  I suppressed a chuckle at my line of thought as I pushed my glasses back on and casually dialed the personal phone number for the curator instead of their office number. The gallery was open until two in the afternoon on Thanksgiving and any good curator would be on the floor and not at their desk, so their personal cell was my best bet. I slapped my hand over my mouth to prevent a giggle when the woman answered with all the venom in the world. “What!? This better be good you flippin’ blocked number or I WILL hunt you down! I’m at work for God’s sake!”

  I silently chuckled and pulled myself under control and said, “I’d like to order a large with pepperoni and extra cheese… oh and do you have bread sticks?”

  The woman hissed back in such a cold tone that if I didn’t know her, I probably would have been very afraid, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. What’s your name? I’m going to start with you then work my way through everyone you have ever known!”

  My stomach was shaking with silent laughter when I decided I was already pushing my luck. “Oh, my gawd, Missy. Missy Hannigan, it’s me, Vicky Davenport.”

  Her voice changed radically, it became such a softer tone, I swear I could hear her smiling. Instead of the harbinger of pain and suffering, it now had a decidedly sarcastic and slightly excited tone. “Vicky you hyperactive bitch. I was about to go all postal on you! To what do I owe the pleasure of one of the Three Lez-migos calling me at work? My God, it’s been what? Twenty years? Couldn’t this have waited until I got home?”

  I just grinned. Her politically incorrect abusive banter was such a part of her character back in college it was good to see some things never change. At the same time, it was also a little sad. I had to wonder what happened to her growing up that caused her to use this as a coping mechanism to make sure people never got close to her.

  Then I frowned a little at the memory of people in college calling Mia, Vee, and me, the Three Lez-migos because we were inseparable friends and all gay or bi in my case. I hadn’t heard that term in two decades. This just brought back the searing pain in my heart that Vee was no longer with us. I felt her death like it was yesterday. 8-3-2-7-9. Fernando S. Alverez, Marie L. Santiago. Chows are the only dogs that don’t have a pink tongue.

  I took a calming breath and chirped out, “Yes, it has been twenty years, and this sort of is a business call. You’ve heard that the gallery is being sold?”

  She paused and said, “Yes. The owners, Carl and Vanessa Schumann, are being secretive and hush hush about it. Did they call you in to consult on the sale? They do know you’re as flaky as a bowl of cereal don’t they?”

  This woman was so funny, I have no clue why we were so scared of her back in the day. I was shaking my head to myself as I responded, “You talk to all your bosses that way?”

  I counted through the ensuing silence with a
half smirk on my face, it took her five seconds to respond. “You’re the buyer?” But then her false bravado was back. “Don’t expect me to like shine your shoes and shit.” Another pause. “Shit… are you firing me here? Is that what this call is about? I know we didn’t always get along, but I know my stuff and…”

  I interrupted and almost chuckled over the fact that it is usually me that goes all supersonic babbly and people have to stop me. This may be the first time ever that I have had to stop someone else from babbling. “No, no, no Missy. Your job is safe. That’s why I’m calling. To let you know that and to let you know that I want to set up a time later to brainstorm ways to get our gallery more active in the local art community and to actively pursue more local talent. We need to turn the gallery around and remind people why we are the premiere gallery in Seattle.”

  I heard her exhale and she was suddenly very professional, all of her sarcasm was placed to the side and I could tell instantly how she had landed the position to begin with. “Thank God. I have been pushing the Schumann’s for two years to try to engage more artists and upcoming talent. I warned them that the luster of the gallery had been tarnishing over the years and that could be the death knell for the gallery. I hated that I was right. I can’t wait to sit down with you and pitch some ideas.”

  I grinned, it seemed Missy was on the same page as I was, this wasn’t going to be as hard as I thought it would be. But then my blood ran cold as she added. “Wait until I tell that spaz Mia about this. She’ll freak out, she’s been trying to get you to come home since… well since it happened.” Leaving Vee’s death unspoken between us.

  I said hoarsely, “No! Don’t tell her yet. I… I need to get the nerve to tell her myself. I… owe it to her.”

  Missy was quiet for a moment then said with a soft, understanding tone, “I understand.” Then she added, “And Vicky…”

  I answered with a cocked eyebrow, brushing my light blonde locks out of my eyes, “Yes?”

  Then she said in a calm voice, “I don’t care if you are my boss. If you hurt her… if you run, again… everything I said about hunting you down earlier, my husband and I will do that.”