by Gail Bowen
“That day, when I arrived on the beach and delivered my message, Des gave Sally what the two of them always referred to as ‘The Look.’ ‘We’ve been summoned,’ he said.
“Sally kept on working. ‘I’ll come when I’m through here.’
“‘Finishing that is going to take a while,’ Des said evenly.
“Sally didn’t look up. ‘You always say, “Give it as long as it takes.”’
“Des laughed. ‘That is what I always say. I’ll be back after lunch to help you finish.’
“After Des started up the hill to the cottage alone, I pleaded with Sally. ‘Nina spent the entire morning making everything lovely for us.’
“Sally must have heard the quaver in my voice, because suddenly she was furious. ‘Jo, how many times does Nina have to send you down here like a little dog to tell Des and me that the perfect lunch is ready, before you realize that she’s using you? When are you going to see the truth? She hates me because I can make art; because Des loves me and because you’re my friend. She wants to come between me and everything that matters to me, so I’ll crawl to her and beg for crumbs.’
“I knew Sally was talking about me. Meek as a beaten dog, I walked back to the cottage. When I told Nina that Sally would join us when she was finished what she was doing, the look of pain I had seen so often passed across Nina’s perfect face, but this time, there was something else. As she picked up the goblet of pansies from Sally’s place and dumped the contents on the grass, Nina’s violet eyes were fiery with hate. ‘Sally tries to ruin everything,’ she said. ‘But we’ll have our lovely lunch, and we’ll have Izaak Levin and Des all to ourselves. Trust me, Joanne. We don’t need Sally. We’ll be fine on our own.’
“I knew at that moment that Sally was right about her mother, but Nina had been the rock in my life for as long as I could remember. If I let go of her, I’d be lost, and so I turned away.”
Georgie’s face was soft with compassion. “You were very young. Don’t judge yourself.”
“Too late for that,” I said. “Come into the living room. There’s a painting of Sally’s you should see. She titled it Perfect Circles.”
Georgie stood silently in front of the painting for a very long time before she spoke. “It’s all there, isn’t it?” she said finally. “The way the summer light encloses you and Nina as you sit at the tea table absorbed in one another. And the way Sally has placed the circle of herself and Des building that fantastic underwater sea castle in their private world beneath the waves.”
“Yes, it’s all there. Sally had seen the door open. She knew Nina would never stop hating her, but she didn’t flinch. She faced life head-on. When Sally gave that painting to me she told me it was the only painting she ever did of Nina. She said Nina was so beautiful she could almost forgive her. I used Perfect Circles on the mass card for Sally’s funeral. Taylor was four at the time. When she saw the painting on the Mass card, she said, ‘Is Nina going to kill us all?’ I finally had to face the truth, thirty-two years too late.”
Georgie and I worked till ten that night. In spite of the shopping I’d done earlier, Zack ordered in pizza, and we joined him for pizza and beer at six o’clock, then went back to it. By noon Friday, we had a first draft of the script for the third episode of Sally and Joanne. It needed work, but we were back on track. Georgie and I were both immensely relieved — not simply because the script was coming together, but because we were fulfilling Roy’s vision rather than looking over our shoulders and trying to guess what Roy would have done. Only Roy’s name would appear on the final credits, but Georgie and I would know we had done our part.
* * *
Ainsley had been reclusive all week and I was surprised when Taylor called to say Ainsley had agreed to meet Vale on Saturday morning at her duplex. Ainsley’s decision meant Vale and Taylor were free all day Friday, and they spent the morning visiting with the crew members they had come to know on the set of The Happiest Girl.
Georgie and I had arranged to meet the young women in the Courtyard for a late lunch after they’d made their rounds. Most of Living Skies’ staff and the people involved in the series had returned to work by then, so the four of us took our time. We had just started dessert when Danny Kerrigan, a member of Nick Kovacs’s lighting crew, came by our table.
Vale leapt up. “Hey, I was looking for you all morning.”
Danny’s smile started slow but grew to full wattage. “You were? I’m nobody, and you’re all over the media now.”
“I’m still Vale, the girl you played Snap with between takes. Why don’t you join us?”
To be hired on Nick’s crew, Danny had to have completed his electrical engineering diploma at Saskatchewan Polytechnic, so he was at least twenty-one, but he had the sweet, bumbling demeanor of a boy in early adolescence. The chairs around the glass-topped café tables in the Courtyard were standard metal bistro chairs and bright red to match the frame of the tables. They were sturdy, but Danny was lanky and in his rush to sit, the chair he chose tipped precariously towards the ficus tree behind him.
Blushing furiously, he righted the chair and began talking to Vale and only to Vale. He wasn’t being rude. Clearly, Vale was his sun, his moon, his everything. The rest of us were just distant planets. Danny’s words tumbled over one another. “Vale, Nick says your face is a privilege to light. Something about your skin. He says it’s as if you have no pores. The light hits you, and you glow. I’ve watched Butterflies at least five times, and I’m going to watch it again tonight. I’ve seen what Nick means. You’re so beautiful.”
“That only happens when I’m in front of a camera,” Vale said. “It really is the lighting.”
Danny was adamant. “No, it’s you. You are beautiful, inside and out. And in ten weeks you’ll be back here.” He lowered his eyes. “I guess your boyfriend will be coming with you.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“But there are pictures of you with Sebastian Cox in all the magazines.”
“They’re publicity pictures,” Vale said. “Seb and I are about the same age, and we both have movies coming out later this year.”
“So he’s not your boyfriend.”
“Seb is very nice.” Vale gave Taylor a mischievous smile. “He’s just not my type.”
Our daughter dimpled and looked away, but I was relieved that Vale was attempting to keep her relationship with Taylor private. Their life together was just beginning. They needed time to get rooted before they faced public scrutiny, and I was grateful that Vale was doing her best to give them that time.
* * *
Georgie and I were working that afternoon, and there was a movie at the library the young women wanted to see, but Zack and I had a date with our daughter and Vale for an early dinner and a pre-dinner adventure. Vale was returning to Regina at the end of April and filming of Sisters and Strangers wouldn’t end until October 26. She and Taylor would need a place to live, and Taylor had suggested a property Zack owned that had an interesting history.
A client of Zack’s, who went by the single name Cronus, had left Zack an odd collection of real estate in his will. One of the properties was an old building in the warehouse district that housed our favourite steak house, the Sahara Club. On the floor above the restaurant was the apartment where Cronus had lived.
For many reasons, Cronus preferred to keep his private life private, and he’d had an elevator installed that took him and his visitors straight from the back door of the building to his apartment. A cleaning service kept Cronus’s place ship-shape, but since Cronus’s death the only person to occupy the place had been Milo O’Brien, a brilliant, apolitical political operative who loved the game and whose services were invaluable during Zack’s campaign for mayor and during his first year in office. When Milo arrived in Regina, I made sure the cleaners had the apartment ready, handed Milo the keys and told him if there was anything he wanted changed to
get the work done and send us the bill.
For Milo a house was a place to crash. Real life was lived wherever election cycles took him. When Milo left Regina for a campaign in Florida, he handed me the keys to the apartment. In the year and a half he worked for us, there had been no bills. Milo had changed nothing, so the place Vale, Taylor, Zack and I entered on that mild April evening was exactly as it was when Cronus left it for the last time.
And it was, in a word, gobsmacking.
One wall of the living room was exposed original brick; the other walls were painted cherry red, a perfect complement to the warm brownish red of the brick and to the white oak reclaimed wood floors. A tan brown leather sofa and three matching chairs were arranged in a conversational grouping around a low, ornately carved circular coffee table. Three silver-framed very large black and white photographs of Ava Gardner hung over the fireplace. Mounted on the remaining walls were at least a dozen tanned animal skins that I hoped were faux but suspected were not.
A four-panel lacquered black Japanese room divider painted with images of warriors, and its twin, painted with images of geishas, separated the living room from the dining area — a granite-topped kitchen island with black leather stools — and a compact but well-designed kitchen with granite counters and top-of-the-line appliances.
The walls of the three-piece guest bathroom were the colour of pink quartz and the fixtures were sleekly functional. Zack’s intake of breath was audible when we saw the master bathroom. The room was windowless, and as we went in, I touched the switch beside the door and what appeared to be a huge bouquet of tiny crystal lights suspended from the ceiling began to twinkle. All the bath fixtures were free standing, white and sculptural, but the walls were a deep and vibrant red and the sparkle from the crystals seemed to set them afire. The effect was spectacular. The purpose of the master bedroom was apparent: a very large low bed with dark grey satin coverings, a TV that was almost as large as the bed, ruby walls, a mirrored ceiling, muted lighting and an impressive sound system.
The door of the room at the end of the hall was heavy. When I managed to pull it open, I was met by a darkness that seemed absolute. I hit the switch by the door, but the light it provided was minimal. In the gloom, the walls were the colour of dried blood. The room was empty.
No one made a move to go in. “What do you think this room was used for?” Vale’s voice was a whisper.
“Cronus was into S&M,” I said. “He believed it was an act of ultimate trust — that the deepest commitment lovers could make was to put their lives in one another’s hands.”
Vale gasped. “Is that how he died?”
“No,” Zack said. “Cronus died a hero. He sacrificed his life to save a child he didn’t know, and that’s a story you need to hear. But I made our reservations for five thirty and it’s five twenty-nine. Let’s go downstairs and eat.”
* * *
Taking a few moments to savour the Sahara Club’s beautifully groomed exterior is one of the pleasures of enjoying a meal there. The sidewalk, steps and accessibility ramp are always freshly swept, the large brass knocker on the door always shines and the window boxes are always bursting with the best the season has to offer. That afternoon they were filled with daffodils, the symbol of rebirth and new life.
It was early so the restaurant was almost empty, but the pianist with the slicked back hair, pencil moustache and tuxedo was at his place in front of the baby grand, playing Richard Rodgers’s “It Might as Well Be Spring.” When the server brought our leather menus, Zack turned to Taylor. “Are you driving us home tonight?”
“If you want me to.”
“Your mother and I would appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Taylor said. “I’m planning to order a virgin Caesar.”
“Sounds good to me,” Vale said.
Zack smiled at the server. “I believe you heard the young women,” he said. “My wife and I will have martinis, extra dry. Taylor, you and Vale choose the appetizers. Jo and I always like your choices.” He inched his wheelchair around to face the girls. “So what’s your verdict on the apartment?”
Taylor and Vale exchanged a glance. “I think we need more time,” Taylor said.
“I’m going to Vancouver in the morning,” Vale said. “We don’t have a lot of time, T.” She turned to Zack and me. “Would it be okay if Taylor and I have another look after we eat?”
“All that red was overwhelming,” I said. “A second look will give you a chance to see the place’s possibilities.”
“That’s settled, then,” Vale said. “Now, tell me about Cronus.”
“That’s a tall order,” Zack said. “But I’ll condense. Cronus was a slumlord charged with murdering his girlfriend, Arden Raeburn. Arden was a respected member of the police force, and public emotion ran high. They were both into rough sex: Arden’s body was scratched and bruised and so was Cronus’s. The physical evidence against him was suggestive. And Cronus seemed determined to alienate the jury. Despite my suggestion that he purchase a suit off the rack for court appearances, Cronus wore only the best, including a pair of genuine python dress shoes and a wristwatch that he told me cost more than his Porsche.”
“Not someone a juror could identify with,” Vale said.
“No, but despite everything, I was certain Cronus was innocent, and I could feel the case slipping away from me. I knew his only chance at acquittal was getting the jury to believe that the rock-’em, sock-’em sex between Arden and him was consensual, and the only way to do that was to have him take the stand. I asked Joanne if she’d sit in on a dry run of Cronus delivering his testimony and give us an objective, third-party opinion about the wisdom of letting him testify.”
“My opinion was that without coaching Cronus would be a disaster,” I said. “But like Zack, I believed he was innocent.”
“I remember you two talking to me about that,” Taylor said. “About how often you have to be able to get past appearances in order to recognize the truth.”
“Luckily for us, one juror was able to do that,” Zack said. “She believed Cronus’s story, and she would not be dissuaded. It was close, but all that matters is that the puck goes into the net and the red light goes on.”
When Vale looked baffled, Taylor gave her a sidelong glance. “Hockey talk,” she said. “Also perfect timing — here come our drinks and our appetizers.” After one server placed our drink and a small plate in front of each of us; his colleague arranged large platters of smoked salmon, Greek ribs, Tuscan cheese and crudités on the table. Zack proposed a toast to absent friends, and we began sampling.
As was always the case at the Sahara Club, during the first ten minutes after the food arrived, there wasn’t much conversation. The restaurant had an excellent chef, and his food merited undivided attention; besides, our family had a rule that when there was food on the table, conversation should be light. The second part of Cronus’s story was difficult both to tell and to hear, and Taylor introduced a topic that she knew would give us all a break.
“Vale and I saw Lizzie today,” she said. “We drove out to her church.”
Lizzie was a teenager who had attached herself to Vale when The Happiest Girl was being filmed. She was a waif with no fixed address who appeared to have neither family nor friends. She was obsessed with the need to care for others, and on the streets there were plenty of people who needed care. Every dollar or gift Lizzie received, she gave away. Vale and Taylor did everything they could to keep Lizzie safe and healthy, and she remained close to them and to Zack and me until someone took her to the Church of Bountiful Gifts, a mega-church that owned a large parcel of land just off the highway fourteen kilometres from the city limits. In short order, the church became Lizzie’s reason for being. She texted Taylor and Vale that she had been washed free of her sins. She was ready to follow the path of Jesus, and her heart was filled with joy. We were all happy for her.
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sp; That night, Taylor’s reference to Lizzie captured Zack’s attention. “Is she still doing well?” he said.
“She’s blooming,” Vale said. “She looks great. She’s put on weight, which she certainly needed, she’s stopped shaking and biting her nails, and her hair is clean and very pretty.”
“So the Church of Bountiful Gifts has been good for her.”
“That church is Lizzie’s life,” Vale said. “They have all kinds of classes and meetings, and Lizzie helps get everything ready and cleans up afterwards. She talks about her Lord and Saviour so often that Taylor and I kept expecting him to join us for coffee.”
I laughed. “As long as she’s content.”
“She is,” Taylor said, “and she told us a secret. ” Taylor lowered her voice. “Danny Kerrigan has a crush on Vale.”
“That was pretty obvious when Danny joined us at the Courtyard today,” I said. “But how did Lizzie know?”
“Danny goes to Lizzie’s church,” Taylor said. “In fact, he was the one who brought Lizzie into the Church of Bountiful Gifts. Lizzie was on set one day waiting for Vale, and she and Danny got talking, and he invited her to a meeting at his church. Danny and Lizzie are in the same young adults group, and the group members really look out for one another. Lizzie knew about the crush because Danny had the flu in January, and Lizzie and another girl from their church took food to his apartment. She said there are pictures of Vale everywhere.”
“That’s a little creepy, isn’t it?” I said.
Vale shrugged. “Not really. Butterflies was a big hit with the emos, and they buy a lot of fan magazines.”