The Last Good Day jk-9

by Gail Bowen

  “Alex didn’t talk to me about his work,” I said. “I wish he had.”

  “Maybe he would now.”

  “You think I should call him.”

  “I think he deserves one last chance to come clean.”

  I felt my nerves twang. I was not about to deny a good man his last chance.

  “I’ll call him,” I said.

  I walked Robert to the door, shook his hand, sent love to Rosalie, and invited them both to come out to the lake. Then, while the adrenaline was still pumping, I picked up my cell and called Alex. He still wasn’t answering. I left a message asking him to call back, then I rang off and turned to look at my empty house. The prospect of being alone with my thoughts did not please me.

  My salvation came, as it so often did, from Taylor. She roared through the door with Isobel and Gracie, who were already in their swimsuits. As Taylor raced to the bedroom to change into hers, she carried on a conversation over her shoulder. Rose’s sister, Betty, had bought a new pair of shoes with heels that were too high and she’d taken a tumble. Rose was driving her into the city to get X-rayed. Rose didn’t want the girls to miss their diving practice, but they needed an adult. Could it be me? As we walked to the lake, Gracie confided that Rose felt Betty had learned a valuable lesson about acting her age. Then came the big news. The girls had decided on a project. It might take them a week to complete. After I’d established that the project didn’t involve danger or older boys, I let them run ahead to buzz and make plans.

  As we often were, the girls and I were alone on the beach. Wealth had its privileges. The wind had come up and cooled the air. As I kicked off my sandals and walked into the lake, the water was welcoming. In my life, our cottages had always been on northern lakes, and I was accustomed to bracing myself physically and mentally for a shock when I dove in. But even on a windy day, there was no need to brace here. We all dove in quickly and began to stroke through the choppy waters towards the diving tower. I had always been a confident swimmer, and as I moved through the waves, my muscles relaxed and my mind stopped racing. In the days since the Falconer Shreve Canada Day party, I had been reeling; it seemed that finally I was ready, in my grandmother’s stringent phrase, to take hold of myself.

  A few metres away from the diving tower, I began to tread water while I waited for the girls to climb the ladder and begin their dives. I watched as, one after another, they came off the board, and when all three heads were bobbing safely in the waves, I yelled that I was going to do laps but I’d be in earshot. Then I swam back towards the raft that floated a hundred metres away. My stroke was the tried and trustworthy Australian crawl. Flutter-kicking forward, my arms cutting through the sparkle of foam on the waves, my gaze turning from the bright sunlight to the iridescent shimmer beneath the surface, I felt myself moving towards strength.

  When I touched the side of the raft, I started back towards the tower, where I checked on the girls and began my next lap. Back and forth I went. Finally, I’d had enough. Exhausted but feeling better than I had in a very long time, I climbed onto the raft and lay on my stomach, my face resting on my hands, the sun caressing my back like a hand. The undulating waves rocked the raft like a cradle, lulling me into a state of equilibrium and the illusion that all was right with the world.

  When Blake Falconer pulled himself onto the raft, the illusion shattered. He didn’t impose himself. In fact, he made every effort to preserve the distance between us. He swung his body around, so he was sitting on the edge of the raft with his feet in the water and his back to me. For a minute or two, neither of us spoke, but we were aware of one another’s presence. Finally, I pushed myself up.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He turned around. There was something different about him. He was still a force to be reckoned with, but the assurance was gone.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said softly. “I thought you’d earned your solitude. I was watching you do your laps. You were swimming as if your life depended on it.”

  “You’re not far off the mark,” I said. “I was trying to get a sense of being in control again. So much has happened.”

  “Being the victim of a break-and-enter can’t have helped,” Blake said.

  “It didn’t,” I said. “It’s disconcerting to think of someone watching your house and pawing through your things.”

  “But the only thing stolen was your laptop.”

  “As far as I can tell,” I said.

  “I have a replacement for you in the car,” he said. “It’s an Apple PowerBook. I’ve got one. It should be okay.”

  “I’m sure it’s more than okay,” I said. “But a notebook like that is way out of my price range.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it. We get a corporate rate.”

  “How much is the corporate rate?”

  He shrugged. “That’s Lily’s department. We’ll check it out when she gets back.”

  “Where is she?”

  There was always something boyish about Blake, but at that moment he looked his age. “The social answer is that she went back to the city. The truth is I haven’t a clue.”

  “That has to be worrying,” I said.

  “It was – the first fifty times it happened,” he said. “But so far, she’s always come back.”

  For a moment, the sentence hung in the air between us. Blake didn’t take his eyes off me. “You don’t look shocked.”

  “I learned long ago not to judge other people’s marriages. If it works for you…”

  “I’m not sure that it does,” he said. “The reasons for staying together just outweigh the reasons for leaving.” Blake’s gaze was fixed on the diving tower. In their identical navy swimsuits and red bathing caps, the three girls looked like sisters, but Gracie was clearly the tallest and the strongest. Obeying that sixth sense children often show when they’re being observed, she turned and waved to us. As he waved back, Blake’s face became young again.

  “Your daughter is so much like you,” I said, smiling.

  The comment had been casual, but Blake’s response was grave. “I always thought that was a source of sadness for Lily,” he said. “I think she would have liked a child like her.”

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “Physically,” he said. “I always sensed that Lily would have felt more connected to a child who was unmistakably aboriginal.” Blake’s grey eyes were sad. “Not that we always get what we want in this world.”

  “What did you want that you didn’t get?” I asked.

  “Truthfully? I wanted to get the part that Lily always held back. Even when things between us were at their best, there was something in her I could never touch. It’s been that way since the beginning.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  His forehead crinkled. “Delia said it was like a Julia Roberts movie. The old days at Falconer Shreve were pretty loose. We were all busy trying to get those bright career arcs going, so we didn’t pay a lot of attention to details like running the office, which incidentally was above a place that made dentures. The smell of false teeth was always in the air, and things were always in a helluva mess. Anyway, every Friday afternoon we had a happy hour for clients and people we knew from law school and anybody else who stumbled in, and one Friday afternoon Lily showed up.”

  “That is like a Julia Roberts movie,” I said.

  “It gets better,” he said. “Anyway, I’d been drinking far too long and I’d reached that lost-in-the-funhouse feeling, and suddenly I looked across the room and there was this incredible woman with legs that went on forever and black hair that fell almost to her waist. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was so much her own person. Everyone else in that room was sweating, busy pushing an agenda – trying to make a connection, trying to get laid – but Lily just stood there, observing. I’m sure you’ve noticed how she does that.”

  I turned my eyes to the diving board. Taylor was poised for a swan dive. I shut my eyes against the inevitable belly flop, but she surpr
ised me by entering the water cleanly.

  “I’ve noticed,” I said. “Lily’s a very compelling woman.”

  “Compelling,” Blake repeated. “That’s exactly the word. And I was compelled. That afternoon I went over to her, stroked her beautiful hair, and said something so stupid that it still makes me cringe.”

  I smiled. “So what did you say?”

  He bit his lower lip. “I told her I could make all her dreams come true.”

  “Smooth,” I said. “How did it go over?”

  “My wife-to-be peeled my hand off her shoulder and told me she could make my dreams come true, too – for a price. That flummoxed me, of course. But as it turned out the price she had in mind was a job, as office manager. She told me it was obvious that Falconer Shreve needed organization. I looked around, saw the place through her eyes, and realized she was right. It was amazing that the board of health hadn’t condemned us: files spilling over the desks, wastebaskets overflowing with containers from Chinese take-out and pizza, dirty coffee cups and plastic plates and cutlery everywhere.”

  Isobel Wainberg was on the diving board looking as if she might change her mind. Her last dive had not gone well, and Isobel took failure hard. Blake and I raised our arms in an exaggerated thumbs-up sign, then held our breath until she took the plunge.

  “When we studied avoidance-avoidance conflict in university, I remembered that diving-board feeling,” I said.

  Blake nodded his head in agreement. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But good for Isobel – going off the high board is never easy.”

  “Is that what you did in your relationship with Lily?” I asked.

  He laughed ruefully. “I’d never thought of it that way, but yes. From the night I met her there was no turning back. When she offered to organize my life, she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I hired her on the spot. We had a drink. I made a pass. She told me to go to hell, and I gave her a key to the office and went home with somebody else. Monday morning when I came back the place was unrecognizable – spotless, organized.”

  “That is a Julia Roberts movie,” I said.

  “It would be,” he said, “except that after Lily and her loutish boss finally got together, they didn’t live happily ever after. He loved her, but she never quite came around.” Blake turned to me. “I have no idea why I’m telling you all this.”

  “Because I’m here,” I said.

  It was a moment of silent communion that broke when Blake looked towards the shoreline. “Surprise, surprise,” he said, pointing at the boat launch. “Company’s coming.”

  Zack Shreve was gripping the device that allowed him to lower himself into his boat. The mechanism was sophisticated structurally, but simple. It depended not on electronics but on dexterity and strength. Zack was heavy-set, and I was struck again by the power his arms must have to hoist his body from land to boat. Blake and I sat in silence as he completed the manoeuvre, turned on the motor, and drove over to the raft. Zack was wearing Ray-Bans with grey mirror lenses that hid his eyes, making him seem even more unknowable.

  “Perfect day for banana fish,” he said. “Or for conversation. Joanne, you seem to have a reverse Scheherazade effect on my partners. They come into your presence and they feel the need to talk and talk. Is it a dark plot?”

  Staring into the mirror lenses proved surprisingly disconcerting. I focused on the midpoint of Zack’s forehead, above his glasses. “No dark plot,” I said. “Just obeying a human need to say what’s on their minds.”

  “Well, let’s be human,” Zack said. He reached up and removed his sunglasses. His green eyes were penetrating. “It appears that we’re all without significant others tonight. Why don’t we go out to eat? The girls might enjoy Magoo’s.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  “It’s a restaurant across the lake,” Blake said. “And it’s fun. Nostalgia – jukeboxes, a little dance floor, a deck where you can get burgers with the works, greasy fries, milkshakes.”

  “And onion rings,” Zack said, raising his forefinger. “Incomparable onion rings.”

  “That settles it for me,” I said, standing. “Onion rings are one of my passions.”

  Zack gave my body a slow and intense once-over. “Obviously they do the job.”

  I felt myself colour. “So what time’s dinner?”

  “I should get some work done tonight,” Blake said. “Let’s eat early.”

  Zack put his glasses back on. “Good idea. While you’re working, maybe I can get Joanne to listen to my story.”

  We met at the dock at six o’clock. The kids had decided it would be fun to get to the restaurant by boat and Zack was eager to oblige. I’d taken Willie for a quick run, so the girls had already taken their places by the time I arrived. As was often the case when they were together, they were huddled in conversation with Taylor, the youngest and the smallest, in the middle. I would have bet a box of Timbits that the subject of their conversation was the hush-hush project that had absorbed them all afternoon. When they came back to our cottage late in the day, they were dirty, sweaty, happy, and mum about their activities. I had a theory, but I hadn’t mentioned it. Secret-sharing was obviously proving to be a lot of fun.

  Blake was sitting beside Zack, so I stepped down into the back with the girls. Zack asked if we were set, and when we gave him the high sign, he turned on the motor and we nosed out into the lake. As we sped across the water, the girls fell silent, and I was able to catch them in a moment of rare repose. Dreaming their private dreams, their faces turned rosy by the slanting sun, they formed a striking triptych of privilege and promise. But young as they were, each of the girls carried a past, and I found myself wondering how heavily their personal histories weighed on their slender shoulders.

  Gracie had tipped her head back so that her face was lifted to the sun. With her red-gold hair, her freckles, and her easy optimism, she was completely her father’s child. Yet as someone whose own mother had been disappointed in her, I knew the burden of living with a mother’s rejection, of knowing that your very existence was a source of sadness to the woman who gave you life. Gracie’s blithe spirit would be tested.

  Oblivious to my gaze, she leaned forward and threw her arms around her father. Blake twisted awkwardly to return the hug. It was a nice moment, and Taylor caught it. The longing in her eyes surprised me. Taylor had been very young when her own father died, and her memories of him were shadowy. I reached over and squeezed her hand, but the connection wasn’t enough. She gave me a vague smile and turned away.

  As she witnessed the moment, Isobel Wainberg’s narrow intelligent face grew wary. Her reaction was no surprise. Isobel was a bundle of imperfectly insulated nerve ends. She had inherited her mother’s cleverness, her odd squeaky voice, and her melancholy. Even her wiry black hair was like her mother’s, shooting out from her head uncontrollably as if the impulses she carried in her brain had caused a short circuit. When she caught my gaze, her smile was hesitant. She knew Taylor had hit a bad patch and she wanted to help, but she didn’t know how.

  We could hear the music from Magoo’s before we docked. Gene Chandler’s classic “Duke of Earl” rocked out across the water. Gracie squeezed her eyes shut in delight. “This is going to be so wicked!” Isobel allowed herself a small smile of agreement, but Taylor remained deep in the heart of darkness.

  I leaned towards her. “Penny for your thoughts,” I said.

  My daughter raised her eyes to mine. “I was thinking about what I’d leave behind,” she said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I was wondering what I’d leave behind after I died,” Taylor said.

  I tried to keep my voice steady. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “Everything’s great,” Taylor said.

  “Can we talk about it later?” I said.

  Her face was unreadable. “It was just a question, Jo.” The patient detachment in her voice was familiar. It was her mother Sally’s tone. The boat docked
; the girls scrambled out, laughing as they raced towards the music, and I was left to ponder the fact that once again nature had trumped nurture.

  It was early on a Tuesday night, but Magoo’s was crowded. It wasn’t hard to figure out the secret of the owners’ success. They had chosen to recreate an ideal of uncomplicated innocence that would make people happy, and they had achieved their goal. Everything was authentic. The big Wurlitzer jukebox that met you when you came into the room was vintage. Its distinctive rounded top, bright columns of colour, and the glass front through which you could watch your musical choices slide into place were guaranteed to bring a smile – just as they had during their heyday in the middle decades of the twentieth century. The servers, too, had the bounce of an era before the age of irony. The walls were covered with cheerfully faked photographs of flesh-and-blood celebrities of the fifties and sixties posing with Mr. Magoo, the crotchety, myopic, W.C. Fields-like cartoon character who gave the restaurant its name.

  Zack had reserved a table for us on the deck overlooking the lake, and as soon as we’d placed our orders, the girls hit us up for loonies to play the jukebox and gravitated towards the dance floor. Taylor seemed to have left her existential angst in the boat, so there was nothing to do but relax, listen to Jan and Dean sing “Dead Man’s Curve,” and enjoy the sunset and the Japanese lanterns.

  When Blake excused himself to talk to friends he’d spotted across the deck, Zack gave me an opening I couldn’t ignore. “So what have you been up to, Joanne? I know you were out of town, because I knocked at your door.”

  “I was in Saskatoon tracking down a former employee of yours,” I said.

  Zack raised an eyebrow. “And who would that be?”

  “Clare Mackey,” I said.

  I watched his face carefully for a reaction. There was none. “You didn’t have to drive to Saskatoon to find out where Clare was,” he said evenly. “I could have told you.”

  “Good,” I said. “So where is she?”

  “Clare is in feminist heaven. She landed a job with an all-female law firm in Vancouver.”

  “What’s the name of the firm?”