by Gail Bowen
“One of my bests too,” I said. “I was on the beach when it happened, so I got to watch.”
“Well here’s one of my bests,” Georgie said, then with the half proud, half embarrassed at being proud smile I remembered from my own pregnancies, she patted her baby bump.
Chloe was quick off the mark. She reached into her beach bag and pulled out an ultrasound photo. “This is our baby,” she said. “He’s a boy. We’re naming him Erik after my dad’s dad, and Lewis after Georgie’s dad. So his name will be Erik Lewis Kovacs. And right now Erik weighs . . .” The look she gave Georgie was questioning. “I forget.”
“He weighs 140 grams,” Georgie said. “Mrs. Szabo says that’s the size of a small turnip.”
“She didn’t come today because there are three things she doesn’t like,” Chloe said. “Crowds, water and . . .” She frowned.
“Loud music,” Nick said.
Chloe’s attention had wandered. “Is Taylor here?”
“She is,” I said. “She’s down by the lake, helping organize the water-skiing.”
Nick turned to his daughter. “Why don’t you and I go down to help Taylor and give Georgie and Joanne a chance to talk?”
“Thanks,” I said. I turned to Georgie. “Let’s go to the cottage. That way we won’t get interrupted.”
“And I’ll be close to the bathroom,” Georgie said. “A pressing concern these days.”
We settled in what had become my favourite place for reading, a room with floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the woods behind our cottage. The chairs were deep and comfortable, and when the windows were open, as they were that day, I could smell the sharp scent of evergreens and once in a while, the faint tang of skunk.
Georgie inhaled deeply. “I’ve always been a big-city girl,” she said. “But I’m starting to feel the allure of cottage life. When we were at Anglin, Nick and I started talking about buying a cottage. We’ve decided to stay in the house on Winnipeg Street, but it would be nice to have a place like this not too far from the city for weekends.”
“Then I guess it’s time for you and me to hit the real estate listings again,” I said. “Georgie, it just occurred to me that your work on Sisters and Strangers will be over soon. Have you decided what you’re going to do next?”
“I’ve had offers,” Georgie said, “but I’m not rushing into anything. A year ago I couldn’t have found Regina on a map. And now here I am with a husband, a daughter, Mrs. Szabo, a house and a baby on the way. I think I’m just going to focus on making everything work for all of us. Writing is a portable skill, and if the urge overwhelms me, I’ll open my laptop.”
“Good call,” I said. “Sometimes it takes a while to realize that we don’t have to do everything at once.”
“To everything there is a season?”
“Something like that,” I said. “And when it’s time for you to write again, you’ll have a truckload of fresh insights and new perspectives to bring to your work.”
“And I need that. I’m tired, Jo. Sisters and Strangers was a tough row to hoe, but we made it through. I’m proud of that, and I’m proud of the script we wrote. From what I’ve seen and from what Nick tells me, the series is going to be everything we hoped it would be.” Georgie suddenly narrowed her eyes, looked puzzled and then touched her stomach. “I think I just felt the little dude move.”
“How far along are you?”
“Nineteen and a half weeks.”
“That’s in the ballpark.”
Georgie was on her feet. “I’d better find Nick and Chloe in case it happens again.”
I smiled. “It will happen again. And again, and again. At the end you’ll feel as if there’s a roller derby going on in there.”
I walked down to the lake with Georgie and stood aside as she told Nick and Chloe about Erik making his presence known. It was an intimate moment, and Nick’s and Chloe’s faces were soft with wonder as they rested their fingers on Georgie’s belly.
I had turned away to give the Kovacs family time to savour the experience privately, when I heard Rosamond Burke’s rich full-timbered voice call my name. Tall, commanding and elegant in a floaty white crepe de Chine maxi dress, she was striding towards me. When she reached me, she took both my hands in hers. “Joanne, before we start filming again. I wanted to thank you for the script, not just as an actor but as Sally’s friend. Only someone who loved her as you did could have recognized her courage and her honesty. She never lied to anyone, including herself. That’s a rare virtue. She had a huge capacity for love, but she told me that after her father died, you were the only person she ever allowed herself to love.”
“That’s because she knew that, no matter what, I’d never stop loving her,” I said.
“Exactly.” Rosamond squared her shoulders. “Now Zack has asked if I will be his spotter as he drives the water-skiers around the lake, and I see that he’s already waiting.” She picked up the ends of the pale orange crepe de Chine band on her broad-brimmed sun hat and tied them under her chin. “That’s the ticket,” she said. “This hat is an old friend, and I would hate for it to end its days on the bottom of a Canadian lake.”
* * *
Rosamond’s hat survived, and much, much later when I saw the close-to-finished first two episodes of Sisters and Strangers, I noticed how skillfully Rosamond adjusted the hat on her handsome head to make certain her features were always benevolently lit.
By the time I saw the rough cuts, the snow was on the ground; our Christmas lights were on the tree, and the rhythm of our lives seemed to have permanently slowed. At the beginning of August, Zack announced that he was taking the entire month off work. I was certain that he made the promise in good faith; I was equally certain that he would be unable to stay away from Falconer Shreve. He loved the law, and during the years when he was mayor, he honoured his commitment to the city, but I knew he was like a penned bull, head lowered, shoulders hunched pawing the ground, itching to get back in the ring.
That August Zack surprised me. He seemed perfectly content simply to enjoy life at the lake. There was always family around. Taylor had inherited the first cottage built on Lawyers’ Bay from my long-time friend and Zack’s late partner Kevin Hynd. She and Vale loved the old place, and no matter how late shooting finished on Friday, they drove out to the lake and left for the city in the early hours of Monday morning. We had a guest cottage, and Charlie D, Mieka and the girls were there for the first two weeks in August, and Maisie, Peter and the twins stayed at the lake till Labour Day. Most weekends Angus was there too. The Wainbergs and Rose and Betty were at Lawyers’ Bay all summer, and it was a treat for us all when, in mid-August, Gracie Falconer flew back from Indiana to participate in the jingle dance event at the Standing Buffalo Powwow.
Gracie, a pre-med student at Notre Dame University, and a guard for the Fighting Irish women’s basketball team, was spending the summer on campus taking a class in human biology and shadowing one of the physicians with the Notre Dame’s athletic programs. Gracie had inherited her father’s red hair and pale skin, but Rose and Betty had schooled her in the old ways, and Gracie was not only fluent in the Dakota language, she always placed in the top three in the jingle dance event.
A powwow is a celebration in music, dance, food and crafts of First Nations culture. The drums, the singing, the traditional dances, the extravagantly beautiful and significant regalia of the dancers, and the smells of fried bannock and barbecued game combine to draw dancers and watchers into a single community driven by the powerful central heartbeat of the drum.
On that sizzling August day, Georgie, Nick and Chloe had joined the Wainbergs, Rose, Betty, Taylor, Vale, Zack and me to watch the Grand Entry of the veterans, flag carriers and dancers as they were drummed in by the host drums. After all had entered, we opened our folding chairs and as the drumming continued and the singers raised their voices, we sat mesmerized by first the ma
le, and then the female dancers.
Rose and Betty had braided Gracie’s flaming red hair in the traditional way, and they had sewn every stitch and attached every bell to the skirt of her green jingle dance dress. Gracie danced with precision and beauty and when she was awarded first prize, Betty burst into tears and Rose swallowed hard and handed her sister a tissue.
Every summer has one indelible memory, and mine came when, after the dancing ended, we all trooped outside the tent and, at their request, Gracie began teaching Madeleine and Lena the basic steps of the jingle dance. The girls stood single file behind Gracie, carefully mimicking her movements. For a minute or two Chloe watched and then she moved into line behind Lena, then Charlie and Colin joined the procession. As the drumbeat from the centre of the tent reverberated, and the singers’ voices rose in pitch and intensity, Gracie and the five children danced. It was what Virginia Woolf would have called “a moment of being,” as self-contained, fragile and shimmering as a teardrop — a flash of awareness of the pattern beneath daily life.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The last day of shooting for Sisters and Strangers was October 31, Halloween. That evening, Vale and Taylor, dressed as Teletubbies, handed out treats to trick-or-treaters. As always, we ran out of candy, and Zack had to drive to the Golden Mile for supplies, and also as always, after we blew out the candles in the jack-o’-lanterns, Zack sat at the kitchen table with whoever had handed out the candy and divided the leftovers.
The next morning, Taylor drove Vale to the airport to start the North American publicity tour for The Happiest Girl. Originally, they had planned to travel together, but the movie was attracting a great deal of interest — cities with significant media markets were being added to the schedule, and it became clear that the time Taylor had allotted for visiting galleries would now be spent in airports or TV green rooms. The two women respected each other’s work, and when Vale suggested Taylor’s time would be better spent making art, Taylor was quick to agree.
Early in December, Vale would return to Regina, and after a week of visits, she and Taylor would fly to London, where they would stay with Rosamond at her home on Cheyne Walk, the eighteenth-century street that was once home to Henry James, T.S. Eliot and Mick Jagger. Vale and Taylor would celebrate Christmas with Rosamond and then the tour would continue in Europe. It would be a true Henry James adventure for Taylor and Vale, and Zack and I had finally accepted the fact that it was time to let our daughter experience life an ocean away from us.
Until then, we were simply grateful that Taylor would be with us to celebrate her nineteenth birthday and to welcome Erik Lewis Kovacs to the world. Erik arrived on November 22, American Thanksgiving, and Nick brought Georgie a deli turkey sandwich to commemorate her first Thanksgiving as a mother. Erik was a healthy, handsome ten-pound boy, with his mother’s blond hair and cleanly defined features and his father’s blue eyes and expressive mouth. When we visited Erik and his family the evening of the day he was born, Georgie had trouble taking her eyes off her son’s face. “I can’t believe any of this is happening,” she said. “This little guy really does belong to us.”
Chloe’s forehead creased. “But we’re glad, aren’t we?”
“Very glad,” Nick said, and the hug Nick gave his daughter was warm and solid. “Very glad and very grateful.”
* * *
The Wainberg family, including Isobel who was in pre-med at Johns Hopkins, and Gracie Falconer, Rose and Betty were having Christmas at Lawyers’ Bay. Since Taylor and Vale would be in London, Zack and I decided to break with tradition and spend the holiday at the lake too.
On the Sunday before Christmas, Zack and I attended church, had a quick lunch and carried the last-minute purchases out to the Volvo. Except for cajoling Pantera and Esme into the back of the station wagon, we were ready to rock. I’d just put the dogs or their leashes when a cab pulled up in front of the house, and Ainsley Blair emerged.
It had been weeks since I’d seen Ainsley, and I was struck by how well she looked. Both Georgie and Vale reported that, throughout the shoot, Ainsley had been the consummate professional — calm but exacting and unfailingly patient and courteous with cast and crew. As she walked towards us that day, Ainsley moved with the easy energy of a vital woman at peace with herself.
“I’m so glad I caught you,” she said. “I knew you were going out of town for the holidays, but I didn’t realize you were leaving today.” She handed me a package. “These are copies of the first two episodes of Sisters and Strangers. They need some tinkering, but they’re close. As you know, Roy saw the first two episodes as the place where we reveal the roots from which all the stories in the series grow. It’s critical that the audience sees how deeply those roots are planted and how inextricably they are connected to one another. I haven’t separated the two episodes here. They comprise a whole, and as soon as the network people get back to their desks in the new year, I’m going to New York to see if I can convince them to show the first two episodes together.” Ainsley gave us a winningly dimpled smile. “My charms are a little rusty but I’ll give it my best shot.”
Zack was gallant. “Your charms are still in good order.”
Ainsley rewarded him with another dimpled smile, but her face grew serious when she turned to me. “Roy would have been proud of this series, Joanne. It would never have existed without you. I’m very grateful, and I’m sorry I wasn’t the supportive colleague you deserved.”
“We all did what had to be done,” I said.
She nodded. “Maybe when I’m here for post-production, you and I can make a fresh start.”
“I’d like that,” I said.
“So would I,” she said, then she turned and headed for the cab. When Ainsley’s taxi disappeared onto Albert Street, Zack took my hand. “Do you want to watch the show here or at the lake?”
“At the lake,” I said. “And I want to watch it in bed next to you, propped up by lots of pillows and with a bottle of Jack Daniels in easy reach.”
The two episodes Ainsley brought begin with the raft scene of Sally and Joanne at fourteen, cover the events of that summer and end with Joanne going to the Loves’ cottage and discovering the family in their dining room — Des, still sitting at his place at the table but with his head lolled back and his mouth hanging open, Nina in her chair with her head resting on her arm as it lies on the table and Sally lying face down in vomit on the floor. The segment ends with Joanne standing alone on the dock, watching her father drive the boat carrying Sally and her parents back to the mainland.
Roy’s script for the first two episodes was everything it had to be. Played out against the colour-drenched world of high summer in cottage country, Roy’s rendering of the inner lives of Sally and Joanne as they teetered on the cusp of womanhood was by turns funny and poignant. Camryn Hanson, the actor playing the young Joanne, had a way of stepping back into stillness that suggested she was wary of action, but her face registered every emotion. Camryn’s Joanne was the perfect foil for Vale’s Sally, who strode into life gloriously confident, fearless, ready to tackle anything and everything.
Sally and Joanne’s last summer together had been idyllic: a time of glorying in the changes of their young bodies, breathlessly reading aloud steamy passages in novels and cringing in disbelief at clinical descriptions of intercourse in a medical book Joanne found in her mother’s closet. Roy’s script had captured the quicksilver emotional shifts of adolescence as Sally and Joanne dreamed their big dreams and gloried in the promise of their lives to come.
But Nina had put an end to all that, and the moment Tessa Stafford, the actor playing Nina, came onscreen was a body blow for me. I had glimpsed Tessa at the Canada Day party, but even from a distance her physical similarity to Nina rattled me, and I had avoided her.
Now, Tessa Stafford’s face filled the screen, and the resemblance to Nina took my breath away: the raven-black hair, the widow’s peak, the heart-shaped
face, the violet eyes, the deceptive fragility. It was easy to underestimate Nina because she was so slight and so beautiful, but the old Chinese proverb she was fond of quoting revealed the truth: “The sparrow is small, but it contains all the vital organs of the elephant.” Nina might have seemed as delicate as a Dresden doll, but she was strong enough to destroy any obstacle that stood in her way.
The first scene between Nina and Joanne was familiar to me. After a particularly bruising encounter with her mother, Joanne runs to Nina, tearful and dishevelled. Nina wipes Joanne’s face with a cool cloth, rubs her temples and wrists with a soothing lotion and brushes her hair until Joanne’s breathing slows and she’s able to talk.
I had written very little of the dialogue in the first two episodes, but the dialogue in this scene was mine. The task had been an easy one. I had carried the words with me for decades, but hearing the words and watching the dynamic between Joanne and Nina was not easy. It was unbearable. As I watched Nina cultivate Joanne’s need for her love, I knew I was witnessing a master class in the art of manipulation. When Joanne tells Nina that she wishes Nina was her mother, and Nina smiles wistfully and whispers, “I wish that too, but we don’t always get the mothers we deserve,” I winced.
In retrospect, that sentence chilled me to the marrow, but for years I clung to Nina’s words.
At the end of the second episode, Joanne stands alone on the dock, watching the boat carry away Sally, Nina, Des and life as she has known it. The sun is setting and the only sounds are lake sounds: waves splashing against the dock, the low sighing of aspens in the wind and the eerily beautiful tremolo of loons calling to each other as night falls. The action freezes and words appear on the screen.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
ROY BRODNITZ (1974–2018)