by Vicki Delany
“I am looking for Tiffany. Is she here?” Joanna asked.
Maude nodded, disturbed at the stiffness of her visitor’s spine and the barely controlled fire in her eyes. She did not speak.
Alerted by the sound of the front door, Tiffany emerged from the kitchen clutching a handful of chocolate chip cookies. She was still wearing her long-legged, one-piece pajamas. Her hair was tousled and her eyes bleary with sleep. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Someone was in my house last night. What do you know about it?”
Tiffany shrugged. “I don’t know nothing about it. Why are you asking me?” She took a bite of cookie and stared Joanna in the eye, chewing steadily.
“Would you care for some coffee, Joanna?” Maude said. “I have just taken cookies out of the oven. Come into the kitchen, please.”
Joanna ignored her. “I think that you know a lot about it. In fact, I think that you were there. Want to tell me about it?”
Rocky rose cautiously to his feet. There was tension in the air and he could feel it, something was bothering his beloved owner and although he didn’t understand it, it was his job to protect her. He growled softly and the hairs on the scruff of his neck and on his long back stood up sharply.
Tiffany shrugged and finished her cookie. She suppressed a fake yawn with her long, black fingernails and pretended to look bored. “You’re nuts,” she mumbled. “I haven’t been in that crummy cabin of yours since you threw me out.” Her expression was of bored indifference but her eyes darted quickly about, giving everything away.
“Joanna, please explain yourself,” Maude said. “If you weren’t there, Tiffany would have had no reason to go into your home.” Her eyes darted quickly between her granddaughter and her neighbor, afraid of what she was about to hear.
Flames engulfed a log in the fireplace and it fell apart with a crash of sparks. No one, human or dog, noticed.
Joanna ignored Maude and stared steadily at Tiffany. “You left your scarf at my place the last time you were there. I put it on the coat rack for you. When I left for Toronto the night before last it was still there. I know it was. I got home a little while ago. Someone broke a window and went into my home. That’s obvious. Not much is broken or stolen, but your scarf is gone. Why is that, do you think?”
Maude collapsed in a chair. Rocky moved quickly to her side and licked her hand. He was getting worried but he did not understand why.
Tiffany shrugged again, and continued munching on cookies. Joanna wanted to slap her. Instead she stared the girl down.
“It’s my scarf and I wanted it back, okay? You weren’t home, so I got it myself.” Lazily, she stirred the embers of the fire with an iron poker, avoiding Joanna’s angry gaze. “So a window got broken, not as if it’s your computer or anything. Easy to fix.”
“Is that all you have to say, ‘Easy to fix’?”
Tiffany shrugged.
“I won’t call the police this time, out of respect for your grandmother.” Joanna spoke through clenched teeth, her fists tight at her sides. “But you come anywhere near my home again, and I will charge you. Do you understand?”
Tiffany stirred the fire log a bit more and did not answer. The embers flared up and the pieces of wood caught in a blaze of leaping yellow flames. Rocky traced the source of the unwelcome tension in his home and bared his teeth to Joanna, growling softly to warn her away. Maude stared miserably at her worn old house slippers.
Without another word Joanna turned on her heels and marched out of the house. The front door swung loosely behind her.
When the sound of angry footsteps faded away, Maude rubbed her forehead with her fingers, but she did not look up. The threat gone, Rocky settled in front of the fire, once again content with the world. Tiffany stared at the swinging door and then moved to shut it against the winter wind.
“Tiffany,” Maude said, “is Joanna right? Did you break into her home? Did you?”
Without a word Tiffany turned on her heels and left the room, tossing the remains of her cookies into the dustpan on the way by. At no time was she even tempted to tell her accusers what happened last night. You didn’t rat on your friends. No matter what. Not ever.
Rocky glanced around quickly through half-closed eyes. No one was watching him. Good. He crept silently over to the trash and dug out the discarded remains of chocolate chip cookies.
Joanna returned to her work with a vengeance. She pictured herself surrounded by enemies: betrayed by Fred, arrogant as ever, determined to bring her down; by Tiffany whom she had tried to befriend. She threw herself into a frenzy of work. She would show them all.
With a flurry of farewell phone calls and barely a backward glance, Wendy and Robert departed for the Yukon. James pronounced his vacation in Whistler as the best of a lifetime and returned to the university dreaming of the day he would drop out of school and take up the life of a snowboard bum, keen but just a bit too cautious to actually make the leap. Not a word was heard from Alexis but at least Joanna’s Christmas card and letter were not returned, unopened.
Late one night, a few weeks into January, Joanna rubbed her eyes and cradled her head in her hands, and stared at the computer screen hoping for inspiration that was slow to come. She was trying to rush through a contract that involved writing the manual for a small company that had written a computer program for personnel agencies. To her surprise the owner of the accounting package that was her very first contract, was pleased enough with her work to recommend her to a friend over the nineteenth hole of the Glen Abbey golf course.
She was finding it tough to stick to her commitments to Fred Blanchard as well as keeping up the smaller projects she needed to complete in order to keep her head above water.
She was nodding off at her desk, barely able to keep her head upright, when she heard the sound of car tires crunching on the packed snow of her driveway. Joanna stumbled to the window and looked out to see Scott O’Neill shutting his car door and walking slowly down her front path. He stumbled over the broken step half way up to the porch. For such a large man he was surprisingly agile on his feet. Recovering instantly he skipped lightly up onto the deck.
As she watched him, she thought, for perhaps the hundredth time since moving in, that she should do something about getting that step fixed. She took a deep breath, fluffed her hair, pasted on a smile and opened the door with a hearty, “Hello. So nice to see you.”
Scott was caught off guard by the strength of her welcome. He stepped cautiously into the little cabin.
“What a nice surprise,” Joanna beamed. He had phoned her on his return from Florida but she hadn’t returned the call. She excused herself, to herself, with the pressure of work but she was really trying to avoid him. And she actually didn’t know why. It was nice to hold someone close, to feel his heart pounding against her chest, to sense his breath moving in and out, in and out. Before Scott it had been a very long time indeed.
She stepped aside and swept her arm back in a theatrical gesture to welcome him into her home. She took his coat and scarf and hung it on the worn wooden coat rack. She should say something, anything, but her powers of speech seemed to have deserted her.
Scott mumbled thank you as he shrugged out of his coat and sat awkwardly on a chair by the window.
“How nice to see you,” Joanna said. “Can I get you a drink?”
“A beer would be nice.”
“Sorry, no beer.” She was embarrassed at the oversight, afraid that she would be found wanting. “A glass of wine?”
“No, no thank you.” He twisted his hands in his lap. “Coffee, if you have some.”
“I do.” Joanna fled to the kitchen, glad for the opportunity of a moment’s escape. She ground beans and poured water and poured a glass of wine for herself.
“The snow seems to have stopped for a while,” Scott said. “It’s nice to see the sun again.”
She smiled, any uncomfortable moment in conversation can always be broken up by a discussion of the weathe
r-what would people do without it? “Very nice,” she replied.
“Did you have a good Christmas?”
They talked aimlessly for a while about her Christmas in Hope River (fun), his in Florida with his siblings and their families (deadly boring, except for the nieces and nephews), about her work (coming along at a good pace) and his painting (a gallery showing in Toronto scheduled for the summer).
Eventually Scott got around to the point of his visit. “I called you, Joanna, and left messages.” He sipped at his empty coffee cup. “I was sorry not to hear from you. I thought that maybe we could try to have something together. I would like to pick things up where we left them, see where it leads.” His voice trailed off and he stared intently into his coffee cup.
She clutched at her wineglass as if it were a life preserver. She found Scott attractive, very much so. At another time in her life she would have jumped at the chance to get to know him better. After her divorce she had dated casually, but quite simply she was afraid to get too much involved with anyone. She didn’t want to introduce a new man into her children’s lives. She had heard far too many stories about the children of divorce trying to cope with a trail of boyfriends and girlfriends parading through their houses, fighting with the kids for their parent’s affections. She made a good living and didn’t need a relationship for financial security, so why bother? But in the back of her mind, in a very small part that she rarely brought out and examined, she had always hoped that when her children were grown and out of her house and moved on into lives of their own, she would be able to find someone with whom to share her “golden years.” That time was fast approaching and she was still too emotionally fragile from the strain of the years with Alexis and the residue of her breakdown to take on any more emotional baggage. She needed time, lots of time, to get over the pain of the past and to rebuild her emotional core.
She looked at the big man sitting awkwardly in her living room clutching a coffee cup in one huge paw, and she sighed. She wanted to tell him how she felt, to ask him to give her a bit of time, but she couldn’t translate her feelings into words. “I don’t think so,” was all she could say. “I need to be by myself now. I’m sorry.”
He put the cup down carefully and lumbered to his feet. “That’s okay. Just thought I’d ask.”
Joanna walked him to the door. He started down the steps but turned back. “If you change your mind…” he said.
“I know where you are. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Chapter 26
Snow continued to fall through the rest of January and into February. The second week of February brought a surprise thaw as temperatures crept up above freezing. However, all too soon a cold snap froze the melting snow and turned the roads and Joanna’s driveway into rivers of glistening ice. But the days were getting longer and inside the cabin the few potted plants stirred themselves back to life and eagerly stretched their branches toward the light in the windows. She had not seen either Tiffany or Maude since the confrontation over the breakin, and as far as the townsfolk knew the police were getting nowhere with their investigation into the death of Luke.
The big training manual approached completion. Even Fred Blanchard could no longer find things to criticize, at least not very much. Francis told her that Morris Lipton was sitting up at home now, directing operations from the old desk he ordered be moved to a picture window overlooking his wife’s prize winning rose garden. Apparently he wasn’t too happy with some of Fred’s suggestions and wanted things returned to the way that he had approved them. Fortunately Joanna, despite the disorder in her personal life, was meticulous about the organization of her professional side and still had copies of all the previous revisions. She didn’t even mind the extra bit of work involved; it was so satisfying to rip out Fred’s petty alterations. Morris firmly believed that no matter how good their product might be, it was only as good as the person using it and he was prepared to pay top dollar for the best training and documentation. Joanna was offered a small bonus for the extra work involved. She e-mailed the final product to Francis who sent it out to be printed and bound. As the last part of her contract she would “train the trainers,” when and if the software was sold, training representatives of the companies that purchased the product, so they in turn could train their staff.
To her considerable surprise the smaller project, for the employment agency software, was also well received. She had skipped through it as fast as decently possible, in order to get back to the larger contract. She was a bit embarrassed about it, considering it to be a third-rate rushed job, but the client was happy and promised to recommend her if she heard of any other contracts being offered.
Work falling to a manageable level at last, Joanna invited Elaine up to spend the weekend at the cabin and promised to treat her friend to dinner at the only trendy restaurant in North Ridge.
The day before Elaine’s arrival she had tried to see the cabin through her friend’s eyes. Elaine would find it drab and uninviting so Joanna bought a few brightly colored cushions and huge bunches of fresh flowers (at great expense) in an attempt to give the cabin a touch more life.
She was nervous. It was important to her that Elaine approve of her new home. As she added a large log and a fresh bundle of kindling to the iron stove she could hear a car engine slowly drive past. It continued to the bend in the road and then reversed, driving backward down the narrow snow-covered country road before it turned into her driveway.
Doubts forgotten, Joanna ran through the snow laughing and skipping all the way. She threw her arms around Elaine and hugged her close. The two women danced up and down and laughed at themselves for doing so.
“So this is it, eh?” Elaine said as they walked up the path, arm in arm. “I have been trying to imagine what this place looks like for months.”
“And, what do you think?”
“It’s tiny, and isolated. But I can see that you like it here and that’s good enough for me.”
Elaine was dressed in a fabulous red Gore-Tex parka, just the thing if one intended on camping out in the Rocky Mountains in winter. Underneath she wore a polar fleece vest with flannel shirt and khakis from Eddie Bauer and on her feet, the very best in winter hiking boots. Joanna laughed and hugged her again. Everything Elaine wore was clearly brand new. The woman who refused to visit her boyfriend’s Muskoka cottage until she found out that it came equipped with a hot tub, satellite dish and gourmet kitchen, was trying to fit in to her friend’s new life.
Elaine was a bit taken aback by the fact that there was only one bedroom and bath, but she did protest a tiny bit when Joanna insisted that she, Joanna, would be perfectly comfortable on the couch in the living room.
They spent the afternoon reminiscing about their days in high school and university and catching up on the more recent news. Elaine was Alexis’ godmother and was brokenhearted to hear that Joanna had heard nothing from her younger daughter. “Perhaps I could go and pay a visit to Wendy,” she said thoughtfully. “I have always thought that I would like to go to the Yukon sometime. Maybe I could settle there and be a, what do you call it, a sourdough?”
Joanna threw back her head and laughed. “Well, you certainly are dressed for the part.”
Elaine grinned. “A bit overdone, am I? Well, I always try my best.”
That night they had dinner in North Ridge at the town’s best, and only, elegant restaurant. Not expecting anything quite so nice, Elaine neglected to pack a suitable dinner dress. Joanna assured her that most of the people who would eat there were no doubt staying at a hunting lodge or winter resort for ice fishing or skiing and would not be dressed for dinner.
Nevertheless, in her new Eddie Bauer getup and diamond earrings Elaine still stood out as someone worth cultivating. Jean-Claude, the owner/chef took time out from his busy kitchen to join them for a glass of wine.
He was a tiny man, with a thin little goatee and delicate hands. He wore a classic, tall, white chef’s hat and his perf
ect English was thickly overlaid with a Parisian accent. He first came to the Near North of Ontario, he told them, over 20 years ago on a canoe trip with his older brother and instantly fell in love with the wilderness. He returned to Paris, sold his little bistro as soon as was possible and moved to Canada. For a while he worked in the kitchens of various cottage country resorts and lodges.
He sadly told them of his brother, as if he was telling them of a death in the family. He had returned to France and was now the husband of a fat, lazy short-order cook. They had six children, and, Jean-Claude shuddered at the thought, he worked as a laborer in a car plant.
It took Jean-Claude many years and many false starts but he slowly developed a radical new cuisine based on the freshest of fish and game and other ingredients local to Ontario. When he opened this restaurant in North Ridge it was an instant success. He had been featured in articles in Gourmet and Traveler magazines.
“So now I am a star,” he declared flamboyantly. Elaine tapped the tips of her fingers together in applause and Jean-Claude bowed his head ever so slightly. Although his attention appeared to be focused completely on his guests, his eyes were constantly darting about the crowded dining room. He seemed to be sending or receiving signals from the headwaiter, but his attention never wavered from Elaine’s smiling face and her bright conversation.
“The winter is not so good,” he was explaining, “it is hard, and very expensive, to obtain the fresh vegetables, so the past few years I have closed after Christmas until spring.”
“Why not this year?” Elaine asked. “Although I am glad you didn’t.”
He nodded his head at the compliment. “I have, what do you Canadians say? I have met someone, and this year I have no desire to return to Paris for the winter.”
Elaine noticeably deflated but she recovered quickly and raised her glass in salute. “Our gain,” she said smiling.
Joanna joined in the toast. The silent communication between their host and the handsome, young headwaiter assumed new meaning and she was pleased for him.