by Gail Bowen
We were silent as the end credits ran, and Zack was slow to flick on the lights. Even then, the four of us remained still, reluctant to leave Ursula’s world. Kyle was the first to break the spell. He stood abruptly, mumbled, “I’m sorry. I have to get out of here,” and bolted for the door.
Taylor was quick to follow. When she caught Kyle’s arm, he half turned. “Are you all right?” she said.
Without responding, Kyle lowered his head and strode towards the front door. Taylor followed him. “My car is in the driveway,” she said. “I’ll see what’s going on with Kyle. I won’t be long.”
“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Zack said.
“The movie was intense,” I said. “I’m sure Kyle connected the grandmother’s death with Roy’s. Don’t forget he and Ainsley are the ones who discovered Roy that night. When Ainsley dropped off the rough cut, she talked briefly about how The Happiest Girl would be everything Roy wanted for it and more; then, almost immediately, she was drawn back to that day on the island, and she began describing how Roy looked when they located him in the forest. Zack, it wasn’t a recollection for her. She was there, facing the man who for thirty years had been the centre of her life, and he was digging on the ground like an animal. Her last words to me were, ‘Do you think I’ll ever get over that?’
“Kyle experienced that moment too,” I continued. “I know his relationship with Roy wasn’t especially close, but when Kyle came back from Saskatoon the morning after Roy died, he relived the moment when they discovered Roy. Kyle said he couldn’t take in what he was seeing because despite his inner turmoil, Roy was always Roy: courteous, articulate and immaculate. Watching The Happiest Girl must have made Kyle wonder if he would ever get over what he saw that night on the island.”
“If that’s the case, Kyle should get help immediately,” Zack said. “I’ve had clients who suffer from PTSD, and it devastated their lives.”
“We should talk to Taylor about that,” I said. “She’s obviously fond of Kyle, and I think if she suggests Kyle might need professional help, he’ll listen to her.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to hit the sack,” Zack said. “That movie packed a wallop.”
“It did,” I said. “Between us, you and I just about emptied that box of tissues. Ainsley told me that the rough cut still needs work, but it’s already amazing. I kept wishing Roy could see it. And Zack, I was wishing Gabe Vickers could have seen it too.”
Zack nodded. “The first time we met, Gabe said The Happiest Girl would put Regina on the map as a place to make movies. He said his movie was going to be a blockbuster, a perfect family movie — and he was right. When production companies realize it’s possible to make first-rate movies and TV series here, the Saskatchewan Production Studios will be humming, creating good jobs and changing many lives for the better.”
“Including Vale’s,” I said. “Rosamond is brilliant, but Vale wasn’t overshadowed. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She’s headed for a very big future.”
“And a challenging one,” Zack said. “And our daughter will be part of it. People will have opinions about her relationship with Vale.”
“I mentioned that to Taylor once, and she reminded me that people had opinions about our relationship, but you and I loved each other too much to let go.”
“Thank God for that.”
“I do,” I said. “First thing every morning, last thing every night.”
“Do you think Taylor and Vale will be able to weather the storm?”
“They’re aware there will be difficult times ahead,” I said. “That’s why they’re determined to start their life together in Regina where they won’t be in the spotlight. They’ve thought this out. They believe living here will give them a chance to forge a link strong enough to withstand what’s ahead.”
Zack sighed. “I’m not ready for this,” he said. “Wasn’t it just yesterday that Taylor was making me check the garage for spiders before she’d come out to get in the car?”
* * *
Zack and I were in bed reading when Taylor returned home. The door was ajar so she came in and perched on the edge of the bed.
“I thought I’d better check in,” she said. “I knew you’d be worried.”
Zack peered at Taylor over his glasses. “Is Kyle all right?”
“He says he will be, but he wouldn’t let me stay with him. Apparently, he’s been having what Kyle calls ‘post-traumatic stress episodes’ about the day he came upon Roy in the woods on the island. He had one tonight when the movie ended.”
“That’s what your dad and I thought happened,” I said. “We think Kyle might need professional help.”
“I suggested that,” Taylor said. “Because Kyle is really suffering. He says he can see Roy, and it’s terrible because he knows it’s too late, but he can’t stop it — it’s already gone too far.”
“That doesn’t make sense to me,” I said. “Did Kyle explain what he meant by not being able to stop it because it had already gone too far?”
“No. And I asked him about it. Kyle said there was no point talking because nothing he said now could change what happened. Then he thanked me for making sure he got home safely and asked me to apologize to you both.” Taylor took a deep breath. “So that’s what I did, and now I think I should have stayed.”
“Don’t second-guess yourself,” Zack said. “You did what you could. But you might sleep better if you texted Kyle and told him you’ve left your phone on in case he wants to talk later.”
Taylor smiled. “That’s exactly what I did, Dad.”
Zack held out his arms to her. “Good. Knowing that will make us all sleep better.”
Chapter Thirteen
The previous fall, Zack and I had planted seventy Red Dynasty tulip bulbs in the bed outside the kitchen window. When the dogs and I returned from our run the morning after we watched the rough cut, the first of the tulips was blooming. Zack was at Falconer Shreve for a partners’ meeting, so I sent him a photo along with a note saying Charlie D had called saying he had news about Aunt Nancy and he was coming over as soon as his show was over.
After I’d showered and dressed for the day, Taylor and I sat down to breakfast together.
I poured us each a glass of juice. “Any word from Kyle?”
“Just a text this morning thanking me again, apologizing to you and Dad again and asking if I wanted to join him at their unit’s production meeting this morning.”
“Are you going?”
“I wouldn’t normally,” Taylor said. “I have work of my own I should get back to, but I’ll be more focused if I know Kyle’s okay.”
“You’re fond of him, aren’t you?”
“I am. He’s bright, he’s creative and he’s fun to be with. Wait till you see what we’re doing with that apartment. It’s going to be perfect — not just to look at, but to live in. Anyway, I owe Kyle big time, and I’m one of the few people who is close to him, so I’m going to make sure he gets this PTSD or whatever it is under control.”
“Keep us posted,” I said. “We like Kyle too.”
Taylor sipped her juice. “We never got around to talking about the movie last night.”
“After you left, your dad and I talked about it,” I said. “The Happiest Girl is breathtaking. Vale is going to be able to write her own ticket. You two have a bright future ahead.”
Taylor leaned closer. “You don’t look very happy about that future.”
“We are happy,” I said. “We’re just concerned about your private life becoming public.”
“Vale and I have discussed that.”
“And . . .”
“I told Vale what you’ve always told me. We can’t control what people say, but we can control how we react to what they say.” My daughter’s smile was wry. “Once in a while, I actually do pay attention to your wise word
s, Jo.” As quickly as it came, Taylor’s smile vanished. “Vale and I know not everyone is going to be accepting of us. All we can do is love each other and hope for the best.” Taylor covered my hand with her own. “That’s what you and Dad did, and it worked for you.”
* * *
When Georgie Shepherd arrived at nine, her mile-wide smile said it all. I held out my arms to her. “Are congratulations in order?”
“You bet they are,” Georgie said. “Nick and I are getting married. As soon as I told him about the baby, he proposed. I said yes, we told Chloe that we were going to be a family and just like that” Georgie snapped her fingers — “there’s going to be a wedding.”
“The kettle’s on,” I said. “Let’s have a cup of tea and talk details.”
Georgie was too buoyant to wait for the tea to be poured. “It’s going to be very small,” she said. “Just Zack and you as witnesses — if you agree. We haven’t known each other long, but I thought with Zack and Nick’s years of friendship, you might be willing. Ainsley is the only alternative, and given everything she’s been through, asking her would be cruel. And Chloe’s going to be my bridesmaid. Anyway, just the five of us in the wedding party — if you say yes.”
“I say yes.”
Georgie rubbed her hands together. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner.”
I laughed. “Where did that come from?”
“Believe it or not, from one of the nuns who taught me at Holy Cross. Anyway, there’ll be the five of us in the wedding party and Mrs. Szabo, Taylor, Henry Chan and Vince Treadgold. Nick’s brothers are far flung and they all have large families. There are friends I could invite, but out-of-town guests who’ve never met Nick or Chloe would be a complication we don’t need. We want this wedding to be small and soon. Nick called his brothers, and they’ve agreed that a big Kovacs family reunion here in the summer would be perfect, and I can invite friends then.”
“So ‘small and soon’ is our byword,” I said. “That certainly simplifies things.”
“Nick and I want a Catholic wedding,” Georgie said. “He and Chloe have been going to Mass at Campion College at the university.”
“That’s a lovely space,” I said. “Bright, airy, contemporary. And very welcoming.”
“Chloe likes it, and Nick says Father Sami is very good about explaining things to her. We have an appointment to see him right after lunch. Father told Nick the chapel is free at three o’clock on May 5 — Cinquo de Mayo — so that’s when it’s happening.”
“You and Nick seem to have everything well in hand,” I said. “All that’s left to decide is what to wear and what to eat. So shall we take our tea down to the office and get to work?”
* * *
In truth, Georgie and I didn’t get much work done. We both had our laptops, and the secrets for creating the perfect, intimate, elegant wedding were only a click away. When she left for her meeting with Nick and Father Sami, I walked her to the door. We were both still bubbling with plans and possibilities. “I am so happy for you all,” I said.
Georgie’s eyes were brimming. “This feels so right,” she said. “Nick says we were meant to be together, and I believe that too.”
* * *
Charlie D in the Morning ended at noon so after Georgie left, I made a plate of tuna salad sandwiches and a pitcher of iced tea and sat down to wait for Charlie D.
He arrived at 12:10, and when he saw the sandwiches, he rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I’m ravenous, and tuna salad — my favourite. Do you still make it with curry?”
“I do,” I said. “And there’s more tuna salad in the fridge, so eat hearty.”
My son-in-law and I ate in companionable silence, but after we’d polished off the platter of sandwiches, I said, “So what’s the skinny on Aunt Sally?”
“Where to start?” Charlie D said. “It involves a man named Buzz Wells.”
“I’ve heard his name,” I said. “I’ve also heard that he’s trouble.”
“There are two schools of thought on that,” Charlie D said. “Wells is said to be overbearing, but he also performs miracles on moribund scripts, so whatever problems he creates evaporate the second the box office opens.”
“He spins straw into gold.”
Charlie D laughed. “I’m sure that’s Buzz’s take. But he doesn’t sign on for a project unless he’s relatively certain he can triumph. And his skills go beyond scriptwriting. He’s apparently a genius at coordinating writing with directing and editing.”
“Executive producer skills.”
“Look at you,” Charlie D said. “The ink isn’t dry on your union card, and you’ve already nailed the job descriptions. My father always says you’re a smart broad.”
“And I always stand a little taller when he says that. So what’s the connection between Buzz Wells and Gabe Vickers?”
“This is where the story gets tangled. Remember me saying that Sisters and Strangers got the green light from the network by knocking another six-part series out of the lineup?”
“It’s been on my mind ever since. You said Gabe Vickers used dark magic to make the other series disappear.”
“It turns out there was no dark magic. Vickers just engaged in some down-and-dirty deals with some very questionable people. Apparently, Buzz Wells is the new owner of Aunt Nancy . . .”
My breath caught. “Aunt Nancy,” I said, “and you and I were wondering . . .”
“Yes, exactly, and he was executive producer of the six-part series. Wells has a serious gambling habit, and Gabe found out that Wells was in way over his head with the kind of people who don’t take it kindly when other people renege on financial commitments. So Gabe approached Wells’s creditors and convinced them to put pressure on Buzz Wells to come through with the money he owed and invest that money in a hot new project another production company was set to produce.”
I could feel goosebumps rising on my arms. “And that new project was Sisters and Strangers.
“What did the people who Buzz owed money to get in return?”
“Shares in Living Skies Production Company. It was an easy sell for Gabe. Everyone connected with The Happiest Girl knew it would be a huge hit and Gabe had commitments to the new project from Rosamund Burke, Vale Frazier, Ainsley Blair and Georgie Shepherd.”
“So the squeeze was on.”
“Exactly. As executive producer, Wells had access to the development fund for the series, and he drained the coffers to pay his gambling debts.”
“And his creditors purchased stock in Living Skies Productions, and Gabe Vickers used that money to finance Sisters and Strangers.”
“It gave Vickers enough capital to approach potential backers and put together the rest of the financing. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Buzz Wells was telling his investors that their production was stalled by creative differences and would have to be delayed.”
“The original backers are still expecting Wells’s series will be produced?” I said. “That explains why Aunt Nancy is still paying the rent on their offices. Wow! Buzz Wells is certainly gutsy, but how long can he delay the inevitable?”
“Rich people go on extended winter holidays, and Buzz was able to keep up the pretense that all was well till the middle of February. That’s when he came up with the ‘creative differences’ scenario. Of course, the clock is ticking on that one.”
“I’ll bet it is,” I said. “Charlie D, does that mean trouble for us?”
“It could, but let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it.”
* * *
In mid-afternoon, Georgie called. The music had gone out of her voice, and her tone was grave. “Joanne, I’ve been deliberating about whether to even bring this us up. It may mean nothing, but in case it signals a problem, I think you should know that Ainsley called me twenty minutes ago. She and her friends were ready to set out for the drive to Lennox with Roy’s a
shes. Ainsley says Buzz Wells met her when her plane arrived at JFK, and he’s been by her side ever since. According to her, he’s taking care of everything and she is beyond grateful because she is running on empty.”
* * *
I believe in synchronicity, but by definition, “synchronicity” demands that events that appear related because they occur simultaneously must have no discernible causal connection. Within the space of a few hours, I had learned that Buzz Wells was in desperate need of cash; that he had turned up at the side of his grief-stricken ex-wife, a woman who had access to the considerable assets of Living Skies Productions; and that he was making himself indispensable. For me, the causal connection between those events was written in flaming letters in the sky. I called Charlie D. When I passed along Georgie’s news, he uttered his favourite expletive and suggested we sit tight and let events unfold before we acted, so I went back to the office and opened my laptop.
But instead of opening the script we’d been working on, I typed the words “Buzz Wells, Producer,” in the web search space and hit the link for Buzz’s official site. The headshot on his page was of an attractive man with a tan, a silvery crewcut, a pleasant if practised smile and shrewd, observant grey eyes. I was trying to deduce the character of the man behind the photo when my phone rang. It was long distance from an area code I didn’t recognize. When I picked up, a voice, male and assured, asked to speak to Joanne Shreve.
“I’m Joanne,” I said.
“This is Buzz Wells,” the man said. I looked again at the photo on my laptop screen and shuddered at the powers of technology. “I’m a friend of Ainsley Blair’s,” he said, “and I need to get in touch with Georgie Shepherd. She’s not answering her phone and her assistant told me, she often works with you.”