Chapter Five
I fumbled for the lamp, flipped it on, then quickly rose. Clumsily trying to pull on my robe, I missed the sleeve the first time but succeeded the second, and then stepped into my slippers. I paused, straining my ears, but the sound that had wakened me out of a dead sleep didn’t return.
I considered going back to bed but found that the unwelcome shot of adrenaline had left me wide awake.
My throat somewhat parched, I decided a nice cup of chamomile was in order, so I quietly made my way down the dim hallway.
I descended the stairs, and when I neared the kitchen, I discovered a light coming from under the door.
I quietly pushed it open, taking a cautious peek, and spied Victoria sitting at the counter sipping a cup of tea.
The hinges squeaked as I pushed the door open the rest of the way.
She jumped. “Oh, Aunt Jess! What are you doing up?”
“Looking to make friends with the teakettle, same as you, apparently.”
“I just took it off the burner. Would you like me to make you a cup?”
“No, I got it. You just sit.”
I poured boiling water over a teabag, found a spoon in a nearby drawer, and carried my cup over to the counter.
“Cookie?” Victoria pushed a plate in my direction.
“Well, maybe just one.” I took a bite of a delightful oatmeal raisin cookie, with just the right amount of cinnamon. “Mmm.”
“I remember you telling me,” she said, “that just a pinch of cinnamon makes all the difference. I still use your recipe.”
“You might have improved upon it. You’ll have to share your secret.” I sighed. “But first, maybe we can talk about whatever was bothering you last night.”
“Aunt Jess, with all that you have going on this week, I’d hate to burden you with my problems.”
“Victoria.” I reached out and patted her hand.
“You’ll actually be unburdening me. You’re so dear to me that ever since we talked, I’ve been imagining all kinds of things.
I was relieved to see that you and Howard seem to be the same sweet lovebirds you’ve always been, so I assume your problem is nothing marital. ”
“Not exactly, although I worry it could be.” She took a sip of her tea, then sighed.
“When Howard and I moved back to LA, we had talked about starting a family. But one of us had to establish a steady career, and you know the ups and downs I faced in real estate. You were here when my first multimillion-dollar client was murdered. I felt I had to put all my time and energy into my job, and then Howard started getting more acting parts, and that took more of our focus, and then this house…” A tear streamed down her face and landed on the countertop. She wiped it away with her napkin.
“It struck us a couple of years ago,” she said, still not meeting my gaze, “that now we were about as settled as we would ever be, and we began trying to start that family. Howard was so excited about the possibilities. He’d always pictured a life where he’d have two kids and a dog.
I guess he figured that when we stopped trying not to have kids, getting pregnant would be easy.
You should have seen him, Aunt Jess. He had our future family all planned in his mind, where we would put the nursery, maybe a playroom.
He even started buying little toys that caught his eye. But…I guess we just waited too long.”
She looked up at me expectantly, as if I had the answer to that one too. “You and Uncle Frank never…”
That familiar catch hit the back of my throat. “No, we were never blessed in that way,” I said, using what had become my stock answer. “Although for a time, we very much wanted to.” I took a fortifying sip of tea. “There may be more options today.”
“Oh, we’ve seen the specialists. We tried a round of in vitro, but that didn’t work for us either.
It’s so expensive—although I don’t think it was the money that bothered either of us as much as the whole cycle of getting our hopes up only to have them dashed.
Howard says he’s fine, that he’s content, but I think he’s just putting on a brave face, and me…
well, I can’t explain it,” she said. “It’s more than just disappointment.
It’s closer to a literal ache. Like sometimes I just can’t breathe. ”
I looked down at my tea, staring at the reflection of the overhead light in its placid surface. “I’m familiar.”
“Aunt Jess, does that ache ever go away?”
I opened my mouth, unsure of the best way to answer.
When Frank and I failed to conceive, the emotional turmoil eventually gave way to acceptance.
Of course, back then there were fewer options available.
We took consolation in the fact that we had each other—and then Grady joined our family after the death of his parents, and we’d loved and spoiled that boy.
I’d be quick to say that I found my life complete and fulfilling, despite the disappointment and loss.
But no, that unwelcome catch in the throat, that ache that seems to emanate from the center of the chest, that pops up sporadically when seeing new parents cradling their cooing infant or when hearing toddlers squealing as their parents chase them around the yard, that feeling of missing someone who never was, faded but never quite completely disappeared.
“Aunt Jess?”
“Oh, hey.” Howard stumbled into the kitchen, yawned, and scratched his head. “How come nobody invited me to the party?” He pulled up a stool. “Ooh, cookies!” He slid off the stool and headed to the refrigerator. “Need milk.”
Victoria sheepishly shrugged.
I took her hand and squeezed it. “We’ll talk again.”
Maybe by then I’d know what to say.
* * *
Morning came as mornings often do after a poor night’s sleep: much too quickly. By the time I made it down to breakfast, everyone else was already eating or had finished and Maureen was running the rest of the team through more practice quiz questions.
“Here’s our literature expert,” Seth said in lieu of good morning.
“A hungry literature expert,” I said. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” I made myself a cup of coffee and filled a plate with a poached egg, toast, and some fresh fruit and joined them at the table.
“Read that quote again, honey,” Mort told Maureen.
“Forever—is composed of Nows,” Maureen said.
I rinsed down my bite of egg with a sip of coffee. “You’d like to know who wrote it?”
“I say it’s Keats,” Mort said.
“And I said Shelley,” Seth said.
“And Jessica?” Maureen said.
I felt relieved that I didn’t have to decide between my two friends. “I say it’s Emily Dickinson. Final answer.”
“Ding, ding, ding,” Maureen said.
Mort made a face. “I’d be upset, but I’m just too glad you’re on our team.”
“Hear! Hear!” Seth raised his coffee cup.
* * *
The quizzing continued on our drive to the studio. Now that we had our lanyards, we were able to present them to security to gain entrance.
“Any cell phones on you?” the guard asked. He held up a basket already containing a couple of cell phones.
“No, we left them at home,” I said, not volunteering that Howard had left his locked and hidden in the limo in case of emergencies. “Do you happen to have a map of the buildings? I know we took a right…”
“Sure. Can’t have you getting lost.” He pulled out a photocopy of an overhead view of the studios and drew the route to our soundstage in red pen.
“Thank you very much!” I said.
“You didn’t need to do that,” Seth said. “I’m pretty sure I remember the way.”
Even with the map, we nearly made a couple of false turns, but eventually found ourselves at the door. We headed straight to the locker room, where Jenny and the hair and makeup people were already working on earlier arrivals.
“Change into your Day One clothes and put your foundation on, people, if you haven’t already!” she sang out.
Seth sat on his bench in his locker and stared at the jar of makeup and harrumphed. “I’ve never worn makeup in my life, and I don’t plan on starting now.”
“There’s a fib,” I teased him.
When he just stared at me, I said, “I seem to remember a certain historical reenactment…”
“I was playing a corpse,” he said indignantly.
“And weren’t you in a few productions of the Cabot Cove Community Theater?” Maureen asked. “You must have worn stage makeup.”
Seth sighed, adjusted his collar, and unscrewed the top from his jar.
We were pushed efficiently through hair and makeup without too much protest from the men. Maureen took the longest, as they used quite a bit of mousse to de-frizz her hair, then added foundation to her neck, since the lightest makeup they had was still a tone darker than her natural complexion.
We then stopped at craft services, where Maureen debated coffee. “I thought a little pick-me-up would help yesterday, but it was so strong, I think it just put me on edge. Maybe I’ll stick to herbal tea today.”
Mort already had an empty cup in hand. “Well, if you’re not going to…” He filled his cup with orange juice instead.
Dressed and made-up, we carried our drinks to our table in the faux pub to await the beginning of taping.
The soundstage was crawling with more technical people than we’d seen the day before.
Crew members were now sitting at the consoles and standing behind cameras.
As soon as we’d taken a seat, a young man dressed all in black, except for a patch that bore the name Mike, came over with four microphones and helped us conceal them with our clothing.
Microphone Mike. That would be easy to remember.
“It must be an arduous process to piece together the audio from twenty-four separate microphones,” I said.
“We’ll generally use the booms.” Mike pointed to another young man holding a microphone mounted on the end of a long pole.
“They’ll give us a more natural sound. These lavalier mics are just so we don’t miss anything interesting.
You’re essentially on a live microphone from here on out, so no divulging any national secrets, confessing to cold cases, or revealing where the family jewels are hidden. ”