Tribute

by Nora Roberts

  to come.

  When she’d stumbled into the real estate game, she learned she had a good eye for potential, for color, texture, balance. And she discovered she was fussy. A slight difference in tone, shape or size in bathroom tile mattered in her world. She could spend hours deciding on the right drawer pull.

  And she’d discovered doing so, and finding the right drawer pull, made her absurdly happy.

  On her return to the now empty construction zone of a house, she grinned at the new planks of her veranda. She’d done that, just as she’d build the rail, the pickets, then paint it a fresh farmhouse white. Probably white, she corrected. Maybe cream. Possibly ivory.

  The sound of her feet slapping down on those planks struck her like music.

  She hauled the samples she’d brought with her up to the bathroom, spent time arranging, studying. And basking in her vision. Warm, charming, simple. Exactly right for a guest room bath.

  The oil-rubbed bronze fixtures she’d already bought and had planned this room around would be wonderfully complemented by the subtle tones in the tile and old-fashioned vessel sink.

  Buddy, she thought, would eat his words when this was done.

  She left the samples where they were—she wanted to take another careful look at them in natural, morning light—then all but danced to the shower to wash off the day’s work.

  She sang, letting her voice boom and echo off the cracked, pitiful and soon-to-be-demolished tiles of her own bathroom. No playback from a recording studio or soundstage had ever pleased her more.

  WHEN FORD OPENED THE DOOR, Cilla held out the traveling bottle of cabernet. He took it, held it up and estimated there was nearly half a bottle left.

  “You lush.”

  “I know. It’s a problem. So how about a drink before we go scout out this gym?”

  “Sure.”

  She’d left her hair down, he noted, so that it spilled, ruler straight, inches past her shoulders. Her scent brought a quick, vivid sensory memory of the night-blooming jasmine that rioted outside his grandmother’s house in Georgia.

  “You look good.”

  “I feel good. I bought three toilets today.”

  “Well, that certainly deserves a drink.”

  “I picked out bathroom tile,” she continued as she followed him back to the kitchen, “cabinet knobs, light fixtures and a tub. A really wonderful classic slipper-style claw-foot tub. This is a big day. And I’m thinking of going Deco in the master bath.”

  “Deco?”

  “I saw this fabulous sink today, and I thought, yeah, that’s it. I could do a lot of chrome and pale blue glass in there. Black-and-white tiles—or maybe black and silver. A little metallic punch. Jazzy, retro. Indulgent. You’d be tempted to wear a silk robe with marabou feathers.”

  “I always am. As I’ve always wondered what is a marabou, and why does it have feathers?”

  “I don’t know, but I may buy that robe just to hang in there and finish it off. It’s going to rock.”

  “All this from a sink?” He handed her a glass of wine.

  “That’s how it usually works for me. I’ll see a piece, and it gives a tug, so I can see how the rest of the room might work around it. Anyway.” She lifted her glass in toast. “I had a good day. How about you?”

  She sparkled, he thought. A trip to Home Depot, or wherever she’d been, and she sparkled like sunlight. “Well, I didn’t buy any toilets, but I can’t complain. I’ve got a good handle on the book, the story line, and managed to put a lot of it on paper.” He studied her as he sipped. “I guess I understand your sink, after all. I saw you, you gave a tug. And the rest works around you.”

  “Can I read it?”

  “Sure. Once I get it smoothed out some.”

  “That’s awfully normal and untemperamental. Most of the writers I’ve known fall into two camps. The ones who plead for you to read every word as it’s written, and the ones who’d put out your eyes with a shrimp fork if you glimpsed a page of unpolished work.”

  “I bet most of the writers you’ve known are in Hollywood.”

  She considered a moment. “Your point,” she conceded. “When I was acting, script pages could come flying at you while you were shooting the scene. I actually liked it that way. More spontaneous, keeps the energy up. But I used to think, how hard can it be? You just put the idea down in words on paper. I found out how hard it can be when I started to write a screenplay.”

  “You wrote a screenplay?”

  “Started to write. About a woman who grows up in the business—an insider’s view—the rise and the fall, the scrambling, the triumphs and humiliations. Write what you know, I thought, and boy, did I know. I only got about ten pages in.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I failed to factor in one little element. I can’t write.” She laughed, shook back her hair. “Reading a million scripts doesn’t mean you can write one. Even a bad one. And since of that million scripts I’ve read, I’ve read about nine hundred thousand bad ones, I knew a stinker. With acting, I had to believe—not make believe, but believe. Janet Hardy’s Number One Rule. It struck me it’s the same with writing. And I couldn’t write so I could believe. You do.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I could see it when you started telling me about this new idea, about this new character. And it shows in your work, the words and the art.”

  He pointed at her. “You read the book.”

  “I did. I confess I intended to flip through it, get the gist so I wouldn’t fail the quiz if and when you asked me about it. But I got caught up. Your Seeker is flawed and dark and human. Even when he’s in superhero mode, his humanity, his wounds show through. I guess that’s the point.”

  “You’d guess right. You just earned yourself another drink.”

  “Better not.” She put a hand over her glass when he reached for the wine. “Maybe later, over dinner. After you show me the gym. You said it was close.”

  “Yeah, it is. Come take a look at this.”

  He gestured, then opened a flat-panel cherry door she’d admired. Lower level, she assumed and, since touring houses always appealed, started down with him.

  “Nice stairs again,” she commented. “Whoever built this place really . . . Oh. Man.”

  Struck with admiration and not a little envy, she stopped at the base. The slope of the hill opened the lower level to the rear of the house through wide glass doors and windows, and a small and pretty slate patio beyond, where the dog currently sprawled on his back, feet straight up, sleeping.

  But inside, on safety mats over the wide-planked oak floor, stood the machines. In silence, she wandered, studying the elliptical trainer, the weight bench, the rack of weights, the recumbent bike, rowing machine.

  Serious stuff, she mused.

  An enormous flat-panel TV covered one wall. She noted the components tucked into a built-in, and the glass-front bar fridge holding bottles of water. And in the corner where the wood merged with slate rested a whirlpool tub in glossy black.

  “Matt’s work?”

  “Yeah. Mostly.”

  “I’m more and more pleased with my instinct to hire him. You never have to leave here.”

  “That was sort of the idea. I like to hole up for long stretches. It was designed as a family room, but since my family doesn’t live here, I figured why haul myself to a gym when I can bring the gym to me? And, hey, no membership fee. Of course, it cuts out being able to ogle toned and sweaty female bodies, but you’ve got to make some sacrifices.”

  “I have a basement,” Cilla mused. “An actual underground basement, but it’s big. I gave some thought to finishing it off eventually, but more for storage and utility. But with the right lighting ...”

  “Until then, you’re welcome to use this.”

  Frowning, she turned to look at him. “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Don’t evade. Why?”

  “That wasn’t an evasion.” And wasn’t she an odd
combination of caution and openness, he thought. “But if you need more specifics, I only use it a few hours a week. So you’re welcome to use it a few hours a week, too. Call it Southern hospitality.”

  “When do you generally work out?”

  “No set time, really. More when the mood strikes. I try to make sure the mood strikes five or six days a week anyway, otherwise I can start to resemble Skeletor.”

  “Who?”

  “You know, Skeletor. Masters of the Universe? Archenemy of He-Man. And, no, you don’t know. I’ll get you a book. It doesn’t fit anyway, because despite the name, Skeletor’s ripped. Anyway, you can use those doors there, when your mood strikes. I won’t even know you’re here. And I might get lucky, have my mood match yours—then I’d be able to ogle a toned, sweaty female after all.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Pull up your shirt.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “Keep your pants on. Just the shirt, Ford. I want to check out the abs.”

  “You’re a strange woman, Cilla.” But he pulled up his shirt.

  She poked a finger into his stomach. “Okay. I just wanted to be sure you actually use this equipment, and the mood striking is a side benefit rather than a purpose.”

  “I’ve got a purpose when it comes to you.”

  “Which I get, and which is fine. But I’d really like to take you up on your offer and do that without strings or expectations. I appreciate the hospitality, Ford. I really do. Plus you have Matt’s seal of approval, and I like him.”

  “It’s a good thing because I pay him five hundred a year for that seal.”

  “He loves you. It came across when I subtly and cleverly pumped him about you.”

  He felt a quick and happy twinge. “You pumped him about me?”

  “Subtly,” she repeated. “And cleverly. And he’s a nice guy, so . . .” She scanned the room, the equipment again, and he could almost feel her longing. “How about we barter? I’ll happily take advantage of your equipment, and if you have something around the house that needs fixing or dealing with, I’ll take care of it.”

  “You’re going to be my handyman?”

  “I’m pretty damn handy.”

  “Will you wear your tool belt, and a really short skirt?”

  “Tool belt, yes. Skirt, no.”

  “Damn it.”

  “If I can’t fix it, I’ll send one of the guys over. Maybe one of them will wear a really short skirt.”

  “I can always hope.”

  “Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Great.” Smiling, she studied the room again. “I’m going to take advantage first thing tomorrow. Why don’t I take you out to dinner to seal the deal?”

  “I’ll rain-check that, as I’ve got the menu planned up in Chez Sawyer.”

  “You’re going to cook.”

  “My specialty.” He took her arm to turn her toward the steps. “I only have the one that doesn’t involve nuking. It involves tossing a couple steaks on the grill, stabbing a bunch of peppers on a skewer and baking a couple of potatoes. How do you like your steak?”

  “So I can hear it faintly whisper moo.”

  “Cilla, you’re a woman after my own heart.”

  SHE WASN’T. She wasn’t after anything but the pursuit of her own goals, and the satisfaction of finding them. But she had to admit, Ford made it tempting. He engaged her mind, putting it at ease and keeping it on alert. It was, Cilla thought, a clever skill. She enjoyed his company, more than she felt was altogether wise, particularly since she’d planned to spend more of her time alone.

  And he looked damn good standing over a smoking grill.

  They ate on his back veranda, with the well-fed Spock snoring in table-scrap bliss. And she found the down-to-basics meal exactly right. “God, it’s so beautiful here. Peaceful.”

  “No urges for club crawls or a quick foray down Rodeo Drive?”

  “I had my fill of both a long time ago. Seems like fun at the time, but it goes sour fast if it’s not really your place. It wasn’t mine. What about you? You lived in New York for a while, didn’t you? No urges to take another bite out of the Big Apple?”

  “It was exciting, and I like going back now and then, soaking up that energy. The thing was, I thought I was supposed to live there, given what I wanted to do. After a while, I realized I was doing more work when I came down to visit my parents for a few days, hang with friends, than I was in the same stretch of time up there. I finally figured out there were just too many people thinking up there, all hours of the day and night. And I thought better down here.”

  “That’s funny,” she replied.

  “What is?”

  “In an interview once, a reporter asked my grandmother why she bought this little farm in Virginia. She said she could hear her own thoughts here, and that they tended to get drowned out with everyone else’s when she was in L.A.”

  “I know exactly what she meant. Have you read many of her interviews?”

  “Read, reread, listened to, watched. I can’t remember a time she didn’t fascinate me. This brilliant light, this tragic icon, who I came from. I couldn’t escape her, so I needed to know her. I resented her when I was a kid. Being compared to her, and always falling short.”

  “Comparisons are designed to make someone fall short.”

  “They really are. By the time I was twelve or thirteen, they actively pissed me off. So I started to study her, very purposefully, looking for the trick, the secret. What I found was a woman who was stupendously and naturally talented. Anyone compared to her would fall short. And realizing that, I didn’t resent her anymore. It would be like resenting a diamond for sparkling.”

  “I grew up hearing about her, because she had the place here. Died here. My mother would play her records a lot. She went to a couple of parties at the farm,” he added. “My mother.”

  “Did she?”

  “Her claim to fame is kissing Janet Hardy’s son, that would be your uncle. A little odd, isn’t it, you and me sitting out here like this, and back years, my mother and your uncle made out in the shadows across the road. Might be odder still when I tell you my mama did some of the same with your daddy.”

  “Oh God.” On a burst of laughter, Cilla picked up her wine, took a quick drink. “You’re not making that up?”

  “Pure truth. This would be, of course, before she settled on my father, and your father went out to Hollywood after your mother. Complicated business, now that I think about it.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “And mortifying for me, when she told me. Which was with some glee, when I ended up in your father’s class in high school. The thought that my mother had locked lips with Mr. McGowan was damn near traumatizing at the time.” His eyes lit with humor. “Now, I like the synchronicity that my mother’s son has locked lips with Mr. McGowan’s daughter.”

  Circles, Cilla thought. She’d thought of circles when she’d come to rebuild her grandmother’s farm. Now here was another circle linked to that. “They must’ve been so young,” she said softly. “Johnnie was only eighteen when he died. It must’ve been horrible for Janet, for the parents of the other two boys—one dead, one paralyzed. She never got over it. You can see in every clip, every photo of her taken after that night, she was never the same.”

  “My mother used to use that accident as a kind of bogey-man when I got old enough to drive. You’d see Jimmy Hennessy around town from time to time in his wheelchair, and she never missed the opportunity to remind me of what could happen if I was careless enough to drink or get high, then get behind the wheel or into a car with someone who’d been using.”

  He shook his head, polished off his steak. “I still can’t go to a bar and guiltlessly enjoy a single beer if I’ve got to drive myself home. Mothers sure can screw things up for you.”