Going Deep

by Anne Calhoun

  “No, Chris.”

  “Brooklyn.”

  “Did he go home when he left?”

  “I assume so,” Cady said. “Why?”

  The Audi slid to a stop by the curb. “I’m not crossing anyone off the list until I can conclusively clear them.”

  “It’s Chris. You might as well suspect my mother of gaslighting me.”

  “She had a key.”

  “Which sits on a hook by the kitchen door, where anyone from a neighbor to one of Mom’s or Emily’s friends could have snagged it.”

  “That’s why we’re getting the locks changed today.”

  His focus shifted from her face to over her shoulder. Cady turned to see Emily and her mother standing on the stairs while her mother locked the front door. Her mother, dressed in blinged-up jeans and fur-trimmed boots marched down the neatly shoveled steps, Emily mincing along behind her in four-inch-heeled black boots and a bright red wool coat. Her yellow-and-blue plaid skirt barely peeked out from under the coat’s hem, and a big shopping bag dangled from one hand. A handsaw hung from the other, kept well away from her wool tights.

  “What’s with the saw?”

  “We cut down the tree ourselves,” Cady said. “If you gave my mother a hundred and sixty acres of open prairie and a mule, in a year she’d have cash crops ready to sell.”

  Conn hit the button to open the trunk. “You didn’t buy your mom a house after you made it big?”

  “I offered. She refused. This is her community. She looks in on elderly neighbors, organizes block parties, and this is what she can afford. I think my dad left a bad taste in her mouth. His thing is the best. The best house, car, clothes, watch, barbecue grill tools.”

  Conn shot her a look. “Grill tools?”

  “You know. Spatulas and tongs?” she said, demonstrating with flips of her wrists and pincer motions. “You name it, he’s got the best. Every time you talk to him it’s about how he’s getting the best of something. Mom loves what she has. It’s a point of pride for her to take care of what she’s got on her own. She couldn’t give us much, but she gave us family, a sense of pride in the things we did and the way we did them. These are our rhythms. Mom, come sit up front.” She introduced Conn to her mother, took the saw from Emily and set it in the Audi’s empty trunk, then climbed into the backseat with Emily.

  “Good morning, Cady. Good morning, Conn.” Em folded her long legs and smoothed down her skirt.

  Emily’s voice was pure sweetness and light. Cady was too focused on figuring out how to ask her mother about the keys without giving away the latest development to parse this change in temper. “You look great,” she said, twisting sideways to take in every detail of Emily’s outfit, including the six-inch gap between her knees and her skirt. “Are you going to be warm enough at the Christmas tree farm?”

  “I said the same thing,” her mother said from the front seat.

  “I thought maybe you and I could take some pictures out there,” Emily said, pulling her cell phone from her pocket and getting a good look at Cady’s casual outfit. “What are you wearing? Did you do your hair? Didn’t you read my texts?”

  “I was busy this morning,” Cady said, keeping it vague so she wouldn’t worry her family.

  “With what? Never mind. I brought you a coat too,” she said, opening the bag to reveal a pea coat with wood toggles in a woodland green that would complement Cady’s hair and eyes. “We’ll figure something out with your hair.”

  Cady examined the lining, the carefully stitched label. Emily had obviously spent hours designing, cutting, and sewing the coat. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Cady said. “Something came up and I was on the phone with Chris. We’ll get the pictures, even with my crazy hair. Can I put it on now?”

  “Sure,” Emily said. She shoved the bag on the floorboard at her feet. “Whatever.”

  * * *

  Despite the distraction of the sloppy roads and Cady changing her coat in the backseat, Conn got them to church with ten minutes to spare. Emily reverted to flailing teenage girl and dashed off with her friends to choir rehearsal while Cady and her mother snagged a cup of tea from the coffee bar in the gathering space and caught up with old friends. Conn stood quiet and still just off her left shoulder, fading into the background.

  “Any chance you’d sing with us?” the choir director asked. “The jazz band would love to have you for a song or two.”

  “I’m supposed to be resting,” she said, not wanting to upstage Emily. “But I’ll be in the choirs on Christmas Eve.” Anyone who wanted to sing on Christmas Eve could sing, a tradition that swelled the choir to three times its normal size. After they filed into the sanctuary, Cady closed her eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, and let herself be just part of the crowd again.

  The youth choir sang twice, and on the second hymn, Emily had a solo. Her voice was clear and light, filling the room with a pure soprano beauty. Cady smiled at her and gave her a thumbs-up as she returned to her seat with the choir. Emily grinned back, then rolled her eyes as she caught a heel on a cord running from the jazz band’s amplifier.

  Sometimes her sister was her normal, goofy self—tall and gangly and awkward and a teenage girl—and sometimes she was distant, aloof, almost angry. For now, normal and goofy had control.

  “Where to?” Conn asked when they were all back in the car.

  “Jiro Sushi,” Cady said.

  Conn’s brows drew down. “I thought we were getting brunch.”

  “We are getting brunch. Sushi brunch.”

  “Which location?”

  “SoMa is better. The location out west smells like tannin and dyes,” Emily said, thumbing away at her phone.

  “That’s because the leather shop is next door. SoMa is in the opposite direction from the Christmas tree farm and will be more crowded,” Cady said, mindful of the conversation she had to have with Conn, Chris, Hawthorn, and who knew who else after they bought the tree and got it home.

  When they reached the restaurant, the hostess led them to a booth. Emily slid into one side. “I want to sit next to Cady,” she said.

  Her mother paused in the act of lowering her bottom to the vinyl seat. “All right,” she said.

  Cady shot Conn an apologetic look, but he was wearing that expressionless mask Cady privately called his cop face. He held out his hand to indicate her mother should precede him into the booth, then sat across from Cady. Emily brought up Instagram and started scrolling through posts in her feed, enlarging to examine detail, all the while giving a running commentary on what she saw. Cady looked over her shoulder and made appropriate noises, while eavesdropping on her mother’s attempts to start a conversation with Conn.

  “That one’s kind of a disaster,” Emily said, pausing to tap and enlarge.

  “Are you from Lancaster, Conn?”

  Cady looked at the outfit. “Kind of a disaster” was an understatement, as the outfit involved a felt hat with a floppy brim, a cropped white T-shirt, and a pair of shorts in an unfortunate purple calico. “Yeah,” she agreed.

  “Yes, ma’am. Born and raised.”

  “No … no … no … oh, that’s nice,” Emily said, scrolling faster than Cady could keep up.

  “Slow down,” she said while her mother extracted the list of schools Conn attended. “That teal thing caught my eye.”

  “You must have family in town,” her mother said.

  A pause. Cady glanced up from Emily’s phone screen.

  “Not really, ma’am.”

  “Where will you spend the holidays?” Emily asked.

  “With friends,” Conn answered.

  The waitress showed up with glasses of water, then paused, pen poised expectantly over her pad. “The usual?”

  “Please,” Cady said, then added for Conn’s benefit, “We always get the same thing. What do you like?”

  “A California roll and a tempura roll,” Conn said.

  Everyone handed over their menus. “Mom, Conn’s best friend
s with Shane McCool.”

  “Cady, look at this,” Emily said.

  Her mother lit up. “You know the McCools? Shane’s a wonderful mechanic.”

  “We went to school together,” Conn said.

  Cady dutifully observed the details of the picture Emily showed her, then said, “Tell me about the coats.”

  “They’re kind of a retro side project,” Emily said. “I went through the racks in Nana’s basement for inspiration and chose fabrics in these super vibrant greens and golds and oranges for a fresher feel…” Cady listened with half an ear, straining to catch Conn’s answers as her mother politely but relentlessly pried details of his past from him. What she heard intrigued her, things like “left when I was a baby” and “bounced around a lot.”

  He said it without much inflection, no hint of what it meant to him to have had no permanent place to call home. She thought about how homesick she got on the road, then tried to imagine what it would be like to be rootless, at the whims of adults who couldn’t handle the responsibility of a child. That explained Conn’s reserve. He was good at fitting in, but somehow always at a distance. She’d thought it was a cop thing. Maybe it went deeper than that.

  “This one’s from a pattern Nana had made … Cady, are you even listening to me?”

  “Of course, sweetie. Fresher feel with the colors. Am I wearing the green one?”

  “Yes,” Emily said, but she put her phone away.

  The meal arrived. Emily automatically split the rolls between the three women. Cady made sure to offer Conn some of her share. They finished the meal on a tide of Emily’s chatter. Cady and her mom scuffled over the check for a few moments before she let her mother win. They bundled back into the car and set off for the Christmas tree farm. The roads were plowed and drying, but snow lay on the ground and in the tree branches, glinting in the afternoon sun.

  “Hey, Mom,” Cady said, trying for Conn’s level of nonchalance, “did you get the locks changed on my house before I moved in? I found a key I can’t match.”

  “I did,” her mother said. “Burt Gibbons at A1 Locksmith did it for us, same as always.”

  “Okay, it must be one of the old ones. I’ll throw it out.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Conn parked the Audi at the far end of the gravel parking lot and reclaimed the handsaw from the trunk of the car. The snow lingered on the trees, and the air had turned crisp and cold. Cady had traded her puffy jacket with its hood for the coat Emily made, so she lacked the protection for her ears and throat. “Wear mine,” Patty—because after the sushi brunch, Cady’s mom insisted he call her Patty—said, and took off her own scarf. Cady wound it around the lower half of her face and grabbed her insulated mug.

  Cady and her mother had no problem with the gravel made rough by the snowplow’s blade, but Emily was having trouble in her heels and fell a little behind. At the entrance they got a sled and a map of the farm. They huddled around it at a table outside the canteen. Conn, positioned by Cady’s shoulder, smelled hot cider, hot cocoa, and peppermint drifting through the window.

  “Here.” Patty jammed one French-manicured nail at the map. “That’s where we got last year’s tree.”

  “I want to go here,” Emily said, pointing to a spot on the opposite side of the map. “See the fence line? It’s a split rail, with those big Colorado blue spruces on the other side. That’s a great place for a photo shoot.”

  “Those trees are a little big for the living room,” her mother said.

  “We’re having Christmas at Cady’s, remember? You could fit a twenty-foot spruce under those ceilings.”

  “Sixteen, tops, including a stand and the star,” Conn said. “They’re eighteen feet by the fireplace.”

  “How do you know that?” Emily demanded.

  “Magic,” Conn replied, then relented. “I eyeballed it.”

  “I’m partial to the balsam firs,” Cady said. “The twigs on the Colorado spruces are harder to hang ornaments on.”

  “So we go here for the photo shoot, then here for the tree,” Emily said, jabbing at the map.

  “You’re going to be pretty cold before we get from one side of the farm to the other,” Patty said patiently.

  “I packed jeans. I’ll put them on under my skirt.”

  Cady looked at Conn. “I’m good,” he said.

  They set off for the photo shoot location. The farm was busy, but the crowds thinned out as they walked further into the woods, most people choosing a tree closer to the gift shop and the canteen.

  “How do we get the tree back?” Conn asked.

  “That’s what the sled’s for,” Emily said. Her tone supplied the “duh.”

  “I figured it was for the photo shoot,” Conn said, keeping his tone neutral.

  “Oh,” Emily said. Up to her calves in snow, she eyed it judiciously. “That’s a good idea. Are you some kind of design expert when you’re not a cop?”

  “Not even remotely. I don’t decorate for the holidays,” Conn said. He looked around. It was really pretty back here, the sun glinting off the snow, the slight breeze picking up fine swirls and sending diamonds into the air. Cady and her mother were a few feet ahead, but Conn figured the snow would slow down anyone who made it this deep into the back of beyond to come after Cady.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just me,” he said. “Sometimes I turn on that television fire, you know, the one the CW network broadcasts all night.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “No girlfriend?”

  “Emily,” Cady said.

  “Or boyfriend?”

  “Emily!” Cady and Patty said in unison.

  “Neither,” Conn said.

  “Cady used to have the most famous boyfriend in the world.”

  “I never dated George Clooney!” Cady protested.

  “Which is a crying shame,” Patty said, slogging through a drift. “That man is gor-geous.”

  “He’s so old,” Emily groaned. Her mother shot her a look Conn recognized, the if-you-weren’t-my-daughter-I’d-kill-you look. “Harry Linton is a hand-me-down I’d happily take,” Emily said.

  “Emily.” Conn recognized the warning in her mother’s voice.

  “You really don’t want him,” Cady said.

  “Why not? He’s close to my age. I’ll be in New York next year, not in this hick town in the middle of nowhere.”

  “You’ll be here if you keep skipping school,” her mother said.

  “Mom!” Emily wailed. “Cady, how could you?”

  “I didn’t say anything!”

  “How about an online introduction?”

  Cady jerked the scarf down from her face as she spun to face her sister. Conn caught her elbow to keep her from falling over backward on the uneven ground, then discreetly stepped back. “No. Do you want to know why? Because,” Cady said, clearly clinging to her temper with her fingernails, “I broke up with him when I caught him in bed with a singer I can’t name but who is a far, far bigger draw than I am.”

  She started coughing, dry, rasping hacks that would have turned Chris white with fear.

  “Oh my God,” Emily said, her voice both disapproving and gleeful as she twisted open the top of Cady’s insulated mug. “Drink this. Who was it? Have I met her?”

  “Him.”

  Emily stopped so suddenly Conn nearly ran her over. “What?”

  Cady cleared her throat, then sipped her honey water. “Him.”

  “But … Harry’s not out!”

  “He’s always claimed sexuality is fluid.” Cady shrugged.

  “Is the other singer out?”

  “No comment.”

  “That’s why you haven’t officially broken up?”

  “We weren’t officially together so we can’t officially break up,” Cady muttered, huffing through the snow. Conn caught a glimpse of the split rail fence between two huge blue spruces.

  “You dated for, like, eight months.”

  “It was a Maud thing, not actual d
ating. Trust me, you don’t want this kind of dating life.”

  “Red carpets and paparazzi taking pictures of your every outfit? Sounds pretty good to me.”

  “Do you actually want to date Harry Linton, or do you want to use him to get exposure for your designs?” Cady asked, uncharacteristically sharp.

  Emily deflated a little. “You make it sound so sordid. I thought that’s the way it worked.”

  Conn looked at the horizon, the snow dusting the trees, the dark gray slivered wood of the split rail fence. Anywhere other than Cady’s face. “It is the way things work, and it is sordid,” Cady said. “What started out as liking each other and wanting to get to know each other turned into him getting me bigger gigs than I could get on my own, which means he thought I owed him”—she glanced at Conn—“things I didn’t want to owe him. Keep your professional life and your personal life as separate as you can, Em. Stay you. How’s here?”

  Emily cheered up quickly, fussing over Cady’s coat, flipping the collar up, then back down. “We really should do something about your hair.”

  Conn looked at it. Emily’s dark hair hung sleek and heavy in the sunshine, lifting in picture-perfect tendrils to get stuck in her lip gloss and mascara. Wispy curls escaped Cady’s loose French braid, the dry breeze lifting in one big airy mass. “You want my hat?” Conn asked.

  “No,” Emily said quickly, then looked at him. “Well, maybe. I’m not wearing one, so it’s a contrast, and it’s basic black, and kind of goes with the green. Yes.”

  Conn pulled it off and handed it to Cady. She tugged it down. Emily reached over, pulled Cady’s braid over her shoulder and adjusted the back a little, transforming Cady into a model from a photo shoot for Pottery Barn or J.Crew, the kind with guys in flannel and skinny jeans, and the girls with braids and ankle boots.

  “That works,” Emily said. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Conn said.

  “Here,” Emily said, and handed Conn her oversized phone. “Take pictures. Please.”

  He watched Cady blow out her breath to rein in her temper. Patty also had her phone out. The sisters started out beside the fence, Emily’s face model-serious, lips pouty, eyes focused in the middle distance, Cady a little more amused but obviously trying to match Emily’s demeanor.