Chapter Nine
C HAPTER NINE
I N THE PASSENGER SEAT OF AN EIGHTEEN-WHEELER, JOE SAT slumped against the window. The truck’s air conditioner had gone out about forty miles ago, and it was as hot as hell in the cab.
The driver, a long-hauler named Erv, hit the Jake Brakes and shifted gears. The truck groaned and shuddered and began to slow down. “There’s the Hayden exit.”
Joe saw the familiar sign and didn’t know how to feel. He hadn’t been here in so long… .
Home.
No. It was where he’d grown up; home was something else—or, more accurately, some one else—and she wouldn’t be waiting up for him to return.
The off-ramp looped over the freeway and flattened out onto a tree-lined road. On the left side was a small shingled gas station and a mini mart.
Erv pulled up in front of the pump and came to a creaking stop. The brakes wheezed loudly and fell silent. “The store there makes some mighty fine egg-salad samiches, if you’re hungry.” Erv opened his door and got out.
Joe wedged the handle down and gave the door a good hard push. It creaked wearily open, and he stepped down onto the pavement of western Washington for the first time in three years. He broke out in a cold sweat—whether from the fever or his arrival home, he didn’t know.
He looked at Erv, who was busy pumping gas. “Thanks for the ride.”
Erv nodded. “You don’t talk much, but you were good company. The road can get lonely.”
“Yeah,” Joe said. “It can.”
“You sure you don’t want to go to Seattle? It’s only an hour and a half away. There ain’t much here.”
Joe looked down the long, tree-lined road. Though he could only make out the barest hint of town, his memories compensated. “You’d be surprised,” he said softly.
His sister was just down that road, waiting for him in spite of everything, hoping he’d knock on her door. If he did, if he found that courage, she’d pull him into her arms and hold him so tightly, he’d remember how it felt to be loved.
The thought galvanized him.
“Bye, Erv.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder and started walking. In no time, he came to the small green sign that welcomed him to Hayden, population 872. Home of Lori Adams, 1974 State Spelling Bee Champion.
The town where he’d been born, where he’d grown up and moved on from, hadn’t changed at all. It looked precisely as he remembered, a pretty little collection of Western-themed buildings dozing peacefully beneath this warm June sun.
The buildings all had false fronts, and there were hitching posts stationed here and there along a wooden boardwalk. The stores were mostly the same—the Whitewater Diner and the Basket Case Florist Shoppe, then Mo’s Fireside Tavern and the Stock ‘Em Up grocery store. Every sign sparked some memory, every doorway had once welcomed him. He’d bagged groceries for old Bill Turman at the grocery store one summer and ordered his first legal beer at Mo’s.
Once, he’d been welcomed everywhere in town.
Now … who knew?
He let out a long sigh, trying to understand how he felt at this moment. He’d dreaded and longed for this return for three years, but now that he’d actually come home, he felt curiously numb. Maybe it was the flu. Or the hunger. Certainly a homecoming ought to be sharper. Returning after so long an absence, after all that he had done.
He made a valiant effort to feel .
But nothing seized hold of him, and so he began to walk again, past the four-way stop sign that introduced the start of town, past the Loose Screw Hardware Shop and the family-owned bakery.
He felt people looking at him; it beat him down, those looks that turned into frowns of recognition. Whispers followed him, nipped at his heels.
Jesus, is that Joe Wyatt?
Did you see that, Myrtle? It was Joe Wyatt.
He’s got some nerve—
How long has it been?
Every one made him hunch a little farther. He tucked his chin close to his chest, rammed his hands in his pockets, and kept moving.
On Azalea Street, he veered left, then, on Cascade he turned right.
Finally, he could breathe again. Here, only a few blocks from Main Street, the world was quiet again. Quaint wood-framed houses sat on impeccably trimmed lawns, one after another for a few blocks, and then the signs of inhabitation grew sparse.
By the time he reached Rhododendron Lane, the street was almost completely deserted. He walked past Craven Farms, quiet this time of year before the fall harvest, and then turned into the driveway. Now the mailbox said Trainor . For years and years, it had read: Wyatt .
The house was a sprawling log-built A-frame that was set amid a perfectly landscaped yard. A mossy split-rail fence outlined the property. Flowers bloomed everywhere, bright and vibrant, and glossy green boxwoods had been shaped into a rounded hedge that paralleled the fencing. His father had built this house by hand, log by log. One of the last things Dad had said to them, as he lay in his hospital bed dying of a broken heart, was: Take care of the house. Your mother loved it so …
Joe felt a sudden tightening in his throat, a sadness almost too sweet to bear. His sister had done as she’d been asked. She’d kept the house looking exactly as it always had. Mom and Dad would be pleased.
Something caught his eye. He looked up, caught a fluttering, incorporeal glimpse of a young woman on the porch, dressed in flowing white as she giggled and ran away. The image was shadowy and indistinct and heartbreaking.
Diana.
It was a memory; only that.
Halloween. Nineteen ninety-seven. They’d come here to take his niece trick-or-treating for the first time. In her Galadriel costume, Diana had looked about twenty-five years old.
Someday soon, she’d whispered that night, clinging to his hand, we’ll take our own child trick-or-treating. Only a few months later, they found out why they’d been unable to conceive… .
He stumbled, came to a stop at the bottom of the porch steps, and glanced back down the road, thinking, Maybe I should turn around.
The memories here would ruin what little peace he’d been able to find… .
No.
He’d found no peace out there.
He climbed the steps, hearing the familiar creaking of the boards underfoot. After a long pause in which he found himself listening to the rapid hammering of his heart, he knocked on the door.
For a moment, there was no sound within; then the clattering of heavy-soled shoes and the called-out “Coming!”
The door swung open. Gina stood there, dressed in baggy black sweats and green rubber clogs, breathing hard. Her cheeks were bright pink, her chestnut brown hair a bird’s nest of disarray. She took one look at him, mouthed Oh , then burst into tears. “Joey—”
She pulled him into her arms. For a moment, he was dazed, too confused to respond. He hadn’t been touched in so long, it felt wrong somehow.
“Joey,” she said again, putting her face in the crook of his neck. He felt her warm tears on his skin and something inside of him gave way. He brought his arms around her and held on. The whole of his childhood came back to him then, drifted on the baking-bread smell of the house and the sweet citrusy scent of her shampoo. He remembered building her a stick fort by the fish pond long after he’d outgrown it himself, and baby-sitting her on Saturday mornings and walking her home from school. Though they were seven years apart in age, they’d always been a pair.
She drew back, sniffling, wiping her red-rimmed eyes. “I didn’t think you’d really come back.” She patted her hair and made a face. “Oh, shit, I look like the undead. I was planting flowers in the backyard.”
“You look beautiful,” he said, meaning it.
“Pretend that Grandma Hester’s ass hasn’t moved onto my body.” She reached out for him, took hold of his hand, and dragged him into the sunlit living room.
“I should take a shower before I sit—”
“Forget it.” Gina sat down on a beautiful butter-yellow sofa and pulled him down beside her.
He felt uncomfortable suddenly, out of place. He could smell his own scent, feel the clammy dampness of his skin.
“You look sick.”
“I am. My head is pounding.”
Gina popped up and hurried from the room. All the while she was gone, she talked to him from another room. No doubt she was afraid he’d vanish again.
“—some water,” she called out, “and aspirin.”
He started to say something—he had no idea what—when he saw the photo on the mantel.
He got slowly to his feet and walked toward it.
The photograph was of five women crowded together; four of them wore matching pink dresses. They were all smiling broadly and holding up wineglasses, most of which, he noticed, were empty. Gina was front and center, the only woman in white. Diana was beside her, laughing.
“Hey, Di,” he whispered. “I’m home.”
“That’s one of my favorite pictures,” Gina said, coming up behind him.
“At the end,” he said softly, “she talked about you guys. The Bluesers. She must have told me a hundred Lake Chelan stories.”
Gina squeezed his shoulder. “We all miss her.”
“I know.”
“Did you find it out there … whatever you were looking for?”
He thought about that. “No,” he said at last. “But now that I’m here, I want to be gone again. Everywhere I look, I’ll see her.”
“Tell me that wasn’t true out there, too.”
He sighed. His sister was right. It didn’t matter where he was. Diana filled his thoughts, his dreams. Finally, he turned around and looked down at his sister. “What now?”
“You’re home. That counts for something.”
“I’m lost, Gigi. It’s like I’m stuck in the ice. I can’t move. I don’t know how to start over.”
She touched his cheek. “Don’t you see? You already have. You’re here.”
He placed his hand over hers and stared down at her, trying to think of something to say. Nothing came to mind, so he tried to smile instead. “Where’s my beautiful niece? And my brother-in-law?”
“Bonnie’s over at River’s Edge, playing with Ali.”
Joe frowned, took a step back. “And Rex? He doesn’t work on Sundays.”
“He left me, Joey. Divorced me.”
She didn’t say, While you were gone , but she could have. His baby sister had needed him and he hadn’t been there for her. He pulled her into his arms.
She burst into tears. He stroked her hair and whispered that he was here, that he wasn’t going anywhere.
For the first time in three years, it was the truth.
Meghann’s desk was clean for the first time in more than a decade. All her pending cases had been portioned out to the other attorneys. She’d promised Julie that she’d take at least three weeks of vacation, but already she was having second thoughts. What in the hell would she do with all the hours that made up an ordinary day?
Last night and the night before, she’d gone out for dinner and drinks with some lawyer friends. Unfortunately, it had become obvious that they were worried about her. No one mentioned the drama with the gun, and when Meg made a joke about her near-death experience, it fell flat. The two evenings had only served to make her feel more alone.
She thought about calling Harriet, then discarded the idea. She’d studiously avoided her therapist in the past few days, even going so far as to cancel her regular appointment. Their late-night session had been depressing and disturbing; frankly, Meghann was doing a good enough job at depressing herself. She didn’t need to pay a professional to help her.
She retrieved her briefcase and handbag from the bottom desk drawer and headed for the door. She allowed herself a last look at the room that was more of a home to her than her condo and quietly closed the door.
As she walked down the wide marble hallway, she noticed that her colleagues were avoiding her. Success was a virus everyone longed to catch. Not so failure. The watercooler whispers had been rampant in the past weeks. Dontess is losing it … cracking up … just shows you what happens when you have no life.
The comments were quietly made, of course, in hushed and hurried tones. She was a senior partner, after all, the second name on the door in a business where pecking order was everything. Still, for the first time in her career, they were questioning her, wondering if the Bitch of Belltown had lost her edge. She sensed the same curiosity from her lawyer friends.
At the closed door of Julia’s corner office, she paused and knocked gently.
“Come in.”
Meghann opened the door and entered the bright, sunlit office. “Hey, Jules.”
Julie looked up from her paperwork. “Hey, Meg. You want to go out for a drink? Maybe celebrate your first vacation in a decade?”
“How about celebrating my decision to stick around?”
“Sorry, Charlie. I’ve taken a month a year for the last decade. Your only time off generally comes with novocaine.” She stood up. “You’re tired, Meg, but you’re too stubborn to admit it. What happened last week would mess with anyone’s mind. Let yourself feel it. You need a rest. I recommend at least a month.”
“Have you ever seen me rest?”
“No. That makes my point, not yours, counselor. Where are you going to go?”
“Bangladesh, maybe. I hear the hotels are dirt cheap.”
“Funny. Why don’t you use my condo in Hawaii? A week by the pool is just what the doctor ordered.”
“No, thanks. I can’t drink anything that comes with an umbrella. I think I’ll just watch Court TV or CNN. Listen for my voice on Larry King Live .”
“I won’t change my mind, no matter how pathetic you seem. Now, go. Your vacation time can’t start if you don’t leave.”
“The O’Connor case—”
“Continuance.”
“Jill Summerville—”
“Settlement conference on Friday. I’m handling it personally, and I’ll conduct the Lange deposition next Wednesday. Everything is handled, Meg. Go.”
“Where?” she asked quietly, hating the neediness in her voice.
Julie moved toward her, touched her shoulder. “You’re forty-two years old, Meg. If you don’t have anywhere to go and no one to visit, it’s about time you reassessed. This is a job. A damn good one, to be sure, but just a job. You’ve made it your life—I let you, I’ll admit it—but it’s time to make some changes. Go find something .”
Meghann pulled Julie into her arms, gave her a fierce hug. Then, feeling awkward with the uncharacteristic display of emotion, she stumbled backward, turned around, and strode out of the office.
Outside, night was closing in, drawing the warmth from a surprisingly hot day. As she neared the Public Market, the crowds increased. Tourists stood in front of flower shops and outside bakery windows. She cut through Post Alley toward her building. It wasn’t a route she often chose, but she didn’t want to walk past the Athenian. Not now, when she felt vulnerable. This was the kind of night where it would be easy to slip from grace and, honestly, she was tired of the fall. It hurt too much to land.
In the lobby of her building, she waved at the doorman and went up to her condo.
She’d forgotten to leave the radio playing. The place was jarringly silent.
She tossed her keys on the entryway table. They clanged into a floral-carved Lalique bowl.
Her place was beautiful and neat, with not so much as a paper clip out of place. The cleaning lady had been here today and carefully removed all evidence of Meghann’s natural disorder. Without the books and folders and papers piled everywhere, it had the look of an expensive hotel room. The kind of place people visited, not where they lived. A pair of blue-black brocade sofas faced each other, with an elegant black coffee table in between. The west-facing walls were solid glass. The view was a blue wash of sky and Sound.
Meghann opened the antique black-and-gold lacquered armoire in the television room and grabbed the remote. As sound blared to life, she slumped into her favorite suede chair and planted her feet on the ottoman.
It took less than five seconds to recognize the theme music.
“Oh, shit.”
It was a rerun of her mother’s old television show— Starbase IV . She recognized the episode. It was called “Topsy-Turvy”; in it, the crew of the floating biodome was accidentally transformed into bugs. Mosquito-men took control of the laboratories.
Mama hurried on-screen wearing that ridiculous lime-green stretch suit with black thigh-high boots. She looked alive and vibrant. Beautiful. Even Meg had trouble looking away.
“Captain Wad,” Mama said, her overly plucked eyebrows frowning just enough to convey emotion but not enough to create wrinkles. “We’ve received an emergency message from the boys in the dehydratin’ pod. They said somethin’ about mosquitos.”
Dehydratin’.
As if a microbotanist on a Martian space station had to be from Alabama. Meg hated the fake accent. And Mama had used it ever since. Said her fans expected it of her. Sadly, they probably did.
“Don’t think about it,” Meghann said aloud.
But, of course, it was impossible. Turning away from the past was something Meg could do when she was strong. When she was weak, the memories took over. She closed her eyes and remembered. A lifetime ago. They’d been living in Bakersfield then… .
“ Hey, girls, Mama’s home. ”
Meghann huddled closer to Claire, holding her baby sister tightly. Mama stumbled into the trailer’s small, cluttered living room, wearing a clinging red-sequined dress with silver fringe and clear plastic shoes.
“I’ve brought Mr. Mason home with me. I met him at the Wild Beaver. You girls be nice to him now,” she said in that boozy, lilting voice that meant she’d wake up mean.
Meghann knew she had to act fast. With a man in the trailer, Mama wouldn’t be able to think about much else, and the rent was long past due. She reached down for the wrinkled copy of Variety that she’d stolen from the local library. “Mama?”
Mama lit up a menthol cigarette and took a long drag. “What is it?”
Meghann thrust out the magazine. She’d outlined the ad in red ink. It read: Mature actress sought for small part in science fiction television series. Open call. Then the address in Los Angeles.
Mama read the ad out loud. Her smile froze in place at the words mature actress. After a long, tense moment, she laughed and gave Mr. Mason a little shove toward the bedroom. When he went into the room and closed the door behind him, Mama knelt down and opened her arms. “Give Mama a hug.”
Meghann and Claire flew into her embrace. They waited days for a moment like this, sometimes weeks. Mama could be cold and distracted, but when she turned on the heat of her love, it warmed you to the bone.
“Thank you, Miss Meggy. I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’ll surely try out for that part. Now, you two scamper off and stay out of trouble. I’ve got some entertaining to do.”
Mama had read for the role, all right. To her—and everyone else’s—amazement she’d nailed the audition. Instead of winning the small part she’d gone up for, she’d won the starring role of Tara Zyn, the space station’s microbotanist.
It had been the beginning of the end.
Meghann sighed. She didn’t want to think about the week Mama had gone to Los Angeles and left her daughters alone in that dirty trailer … or the changes that had come afterward. Meghann and Claire had never really been sisters since.
Beside her, the phone rang. It was jarringly loud in the silence. Meghann pounced on it, eager to talk to anyone . “Hello?”
“Hey, Meggy, it’s me. Your mama. How are you, darlin’?”
Meg rolled her eyes at the accent. She should have let the answering machine pick up. “I’m fine, Mama. And you?”
“Couldn’t be better. The Fan-ference was this weekend. I have a few photos left over. I thought y’might like a signed one for your collection.”
“No thanks, Mama.”
“I’ll have m’houseboy send you one. Lordy, I signed s’many autographs, my fingers ache.”
Meghann had been to one of the Starbase IV Fan Conference weekends. One had been enough. Hundreds of starry-eyed geeks in cheap polyester costumes, clamoring for photographs with a bunch of has-beens and never-really-weres. Mama was the only cast member who’d had a career since the show was canceled, and it wasn’t much. A few bad made-for-TV movies in the eighties and a cult horror classic in the late nineties. It was reruns that had made her rich and famous. A whole new generation of nerds had latched on to the old show. “Well, your fans love you.”
“Thank God for small miracles. It surely is nice to talk to you, Meggy. We should do it more often. Y’all should come down and visit me.”
Mama always said that. It was part of the script. A way to pretend they were something they weren’t—family.
It was understood that she didn’t mean it.
Still …
Meghann took a deep breath. Don’t do it. You’re not that desperate.
But she couldn’t sit alone in this condo for three weeks. “I’m taking a vacation,” she said in a rush. “Maybe I could come stay with you.”
“Oh. That would be … fine.” Mama exhaled heavily; Meghann swore she could smell smoke coming through the phone. “Maybe this Christmas—”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Mama laughed. “Honey, I’ve got a photographer from People magazine comin’ over at three o’clock, and at my age I wake up lookin’ like one o’ those hairless dogs. It takes ten women all day to make me beautiful.”
Her accent was getting pronounced. That always happened when her emotions were strong. Meghann wanted to hang up, say forget it, but when she looked around her empty, photo-free apartment, she felt almost sick. “How about Monday, then? Just for a few days. Maybe we could go to a spa.”
“Don’t you ever watch the E! channel? I’m leavin’ for Cleveland on Monday. I’m doin’ Shakespeare in some park with Pamela Anderson and Charlie Sheen. Hamlet.”
“ You? You’re doing Shakespeare?”
Another dramatic pause. “I’m gonna forget I heard that tone in your voice.”
“Cut the accent, Mama. It’s me. I know you were born in Detroit. Joan Jojovitch is the name on your birth certificate.”
“Now you’re just being rude. You always were a prickly child.”
Meghann didn’t know what to say. The last place in the world she wanted to go was to her mother’s, and yet being studiously noninvited rankled her. “Well. Good luck.”
“It’s a big break for me.”
For me. Mama’s favorite words. “You better get a good night’s sleep before the magazine shoot.”
“That’s the God’s honest truth.” Mama exhaled again. “Maybe y’all could come down later in the year. When I’m not so busy. Claire, too.”
“Sure. Bye, Mama.”
Meghann hung up the phone and sat there in her too-quiet home. She called Elizabeth, got the answering machine, and left a quick message. Then she hung up.
What now? She had no idea.
For the next hour, she paced the apartment, trying to formulate a plan that made sense.
The phone rang. She dived for it, hoping it was Elizabeth. “Hello?”
“Hi, Meg.”
“Claire? This is a nice surprise.” And for once it was. She sat down. “I talked to Mama today. You won’t believe this. She’s doing—”
“I’m getting married.”
“—Shakespeare in— married ?”
“I’ve never been so happy, Meg. I know it’s crazy, but that’s love, I guess.”
“Who are you marrying?”
“Bobby Jack Austin.”
“I’ve never even heard his name.” Not since Hee Haw went off the air, anyway.
“I met him ten days ago in Chelan. I know what you’re going to say, but—”
“Ten days ago. You have sex with men you just met, Claire. Sometimes you even sneak away for a wild weekend. What you don’t do is marry them.”
“I’m in love, Meg. Please don’t ruin it for me.”
Meg wanted to give advice so badly she had to curl her hands into fists. “What does he do for a living?”
“He’s a singer/songwriter. You should hear him, Meg. He sounds like an angel. He was singing in Cowboy Bob’s Western Roundup when I first saw him. My heart stopped for a second. Have you ever felt that way?”
Before Meghann could answer, Claire went on, “He’s a ski instructor in Aspen in the winter and he travels around in the summer, playing his music. He’s two years older than I am, and he’s so good-looking you won’t believe it. Better than Brad Pitt, I kid you not. He’s going to be a star.”
Meghann let it all soak in. Her sister was marrying a thirty-seven-year-old ski bum who dreamed of being a Country and Western singer. And the best gig he could get was Cowboy Bob’s in Nowheresville.
“Don’t be yourself, Meg,” Claire said evenly when the pause had gone on too long.
“Does he know what the campground is worth? Will he sign a prenuptial agreement?”
“Damn you, Meg. Can’t you be happy for me?”
“I want to be,” Meghann said, and it was true. “It’s just that you deserve the best, Claire.”
“Bobby is the best. You haven’t asked about the wedding.”
“When is it?”
“Saturday, the twenty-third.”
“Of this month?”
“We thought, Why wait? I’m not getting any younger. So we booked the church.”
“The church.” This was crazy. Too fast. “I need to meet him.”
“Of course. The rehearsal dinner—”
“No way. I need to meet him now . I’ll be at your house tomorrow night. I’ll take you guys out to dinner.”
“Really, Meg, you don’t have to do that.”
Meg pretended not to hear Claire’s reluctance. “I want to. I have to meet the man who stole my sister’s heart, don’t I?”
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Claire paused, then said, “It’ll be good to see you.”
“Yeah. Bye.” Meg hung up, then punched in the number for her office and left a message for her secretary. “Get me everything we’ve got on prenuptial agreements. Forms, cases, even the Ortega agreement. I want it all delivered to my house by ten o’clock tomorrow morning.” As an afterthought, she added, “Thanks.”
Then she headed for her computer to do some checking up on Bobby Jack Austin.
This was what she’d do on her idiotic vacation. She’d save Claire from making the biggest mistake of her life.