by Jill Barnett
“I understand that, Cale. But do you?”
The question echoed in his head long after he left Sachs’s office. How the hell had he gotten to a place where everything he had learned about his medicine was jeopardized? He had to pull himself out of this. He was no different than his patients, and expected his doctor to say exactly what he needed to hear and—voila!—gone would be his illusionist’s existence, pretending a magic that was lost to him. Some way, somehow, he had to find it again.
It was appropriately dark outside by the time Cale walked into his Harbor Ridge house from the garage, frustrated, unsure, angry at himself.
“Pop! There you are.” Dane came toward him from the living room unshaven, wild-haired, his clothes wrinkled and his shirt buttoned wrong.
“Are you okay?”
“I was in on an ASD repair today. She was thirteen years old. The real deal.” Red-faced, pacing and antsy, his eyes moist, overcome with excitement, and on an emotional high, Dane spoke of his first heart surgery, sometimes choking up as every moment of those intense hours in the operating room spilled from him in a tumbled rush of med terms and surgical images that Cale knew so well.
Back when his boys were very young—so easily fascinated by something as simple as a sand crab burrowing, a seashell tangled in kelp, a pelican diving for food—one blond-haired toddler chased a butterfly across the backyard, laughing and seeing only the joy of its winged flight when it slipped from his reach. Each everyday moment that time and age, life and stress had blinded from Cale was a single new miracle in the eyes of his small child. Now Dane stood before him, disheveled, bright-eyed, born of a penultimate and passionate instant Cale had had with Robyn, now a young man overwhelmed with disbelief at what he had just done and seen; it shone from every part of him, eagerness, passion, and something Cale might have felt another lifetime ago. God, he wanted to be his son right now.
“At first it was strange. You know? I was nervous. Felt like I was trespassing. Then I held that human heart in my hand and it was like holding a captured bird. After that, everything went perfectly. God . . . Pop. To do this for a lifetime? You are so lucky.” Dane stopped pacing, hands up in surrender, and faced him with a sense of awe that made Cale feel like an imposter. “I have to do this, too. I have to practice cardiac surgery.”
Cale couldn’t say exactly when he had heard the call. It was always there as if whispered by God, and he had wondered once about Dane’s decision to study medicine, whether it was his son’s choice or he was merely following in family footsteps. But before him right now, he saw his son’s calling—the honesty and the wonder of it—and he put his arm around Dane. “I have no doubt you’ll do better than I have.”
His son embraced him hard. “Impossible.”
Laurel heard from her mother a couple of days later about plans to meet Annalisa for dinner before she went back to the island. As always, what had passed between them that night in her bedroom wasn’t brought up. Why change a lifetime of ignoring the truth? All that invisible emotion was still there; it stood between them as surely as the name Banning.
Her daughter came rushing to the table all out of breath. “I’m sorry I’m late.” Annalisa collapsed in a rattan chair between the two of them. “What a week!” She dropped her purse on the floor, then looked at them before she leaned forward, searching the restaurant. “Where’s the waiter? I want a glass of wine. If I weren’t driving, I’d order a whole bottle.”
“That bad?” Laurel asked.
“Daddy showed up in the middle of my meeting with the project contractor.”
“Oh, God. It’s started.”
“What’s started?” Kathryn asked.
“Beric.”
The waiter interrupted and Annalisa ordered her wine, then explained. “After we won the design contract, Mamie, they began negotiating with Daddy for all of the resort’s restaurants.”
“I can only imagine how that news must have hit you both,” Kathryn said. “Beric has always been a handful. He never liked the idea of your company.”
Annalisa sipped her wine. “He wants me to be a chef.”
“He wanted the same thing from your mother.”
“I was a chef for a long time,” Laurel said. “Until he drove me out of the kitchen and out of the marriage.”
“Remember that Thanksgiving? You and Daddy were arguing about something and he got mad and threw your turkey across the room.”
“The food fight at Cameroon.”
“I’ll never forgive myself for visiting Evie that year,” Kathryn said. “I missed the chance to give Beric a little payback for some of the drama he gave us for years.”
“Nothing stopped him.” Annalisa was laughing. “He stormed around the kitchen with mashed potatoes on his head, directing everyone on how a bird should be seasoned and garnished.”
“Those potatoes were a direct hit.” Laurel had just found out Beric had been sleeping with his television producer for six months. He was throwing a fit because he’d been caught, not because of the turkey. “I think I gained more satisfaction out of throwing that spoonful of potatoes at him than any meal I ever cooked.”
“I would have liked to pitch a pot of potatoes at him the other day. Daddy is so pigheaded. You know, he was trying to make me look bad.” Annalisa’s disbelief and hurt were there in her words. “And when that didn’t work, he took credit for my ideas and designs and my very existence.”
“That’s your father.”
“It’s all about him,” they said in unison.
Kathryn looked to Annalisa. “Sounds like you could use a break. You haven’t been to the island in months. I’ll be done with the show early tomorrow. Come back with me for the weekend.”
“I don’t know, Mamie. This project is so demanding.”
“Do you have to work on weekends, too?”
“No, but—”
“Annalisa,” Laurel said. “Is that Matthew?”
“Where?” Her daughter whipped around.
He had been standing alone near the front door, but a leggy blonde walked over and hooked her arm in his. Laurel started to raise her hand, but looked at her mother, realized what a stupid thing she was doing, and froze. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?
Matt waved, said something to his companion, and walked toward them.
Annalisa finished off her wine and set the glass down. “I need to go to the rest room.” She grabbed her purse and stood, but she couldn’t get out from behind the table before he was standing there.
“Laurel.” He nodded once, then said, “Annalisa.” Her daughter was pinned between him and the table and she looked none too happy about it.
“Matthew,” Laurel said, “this is my mother, Kathryn Peyton.”
Kathryn put her hand out and smiled. “Hello, Matthew . . . ?”
He smiled and took her hand. “Banning, ma’am.” Kathryn paled, but to her credit didn’t pull her hand back.
“Matthew is in charge of the Camino Cliff project, Mother,” Laurel said.
Annalisa hadn’t moved and looked annoyed. “Excuse me,” she said, and rudely stepped around him and left in the direction of the restrooms.
He glanced in her direction, frowning, then turned back. “It was good to meet you, Mrs. Peyton.” He smiled at her mother and said, “See you later, Laurel.”
As he walked away, Kathryn leaned across the table and harshly whispered, “Another Banning?”
“Cale’s son.”
“My God.” Kathryn rested her head on her hand.
“Both of us are working with him. He’s in charge of the project. He gave us that contract.”
Before her mother could speak, Annalisa walked up and put her hand on Kathryn’s shoulder. “Mamie? You’re right. I haven’t been to the island in a long time. I think I’ll go with you tomorrow, if we can take the later boat. I have some work to do in the morning.”
“We can take any boat you want,” Kathryn told her.
“Well, that was certainly
a quick change,” Laurel said.
Annalisa shrugged and she looked tired. “Why don’t you come too, Mom?”
“No. I can’t,” she said too quickly, panicked as she searched for an excuse. “The nursery is delivering some Japanese maples on Saturday.” Make a note to call the nursery tomorrow and order trees. As the waiter took their orders, she wondered if she were going crazy. Imagine how her mother would have reacted if she had known that three hours ago, Laurel had agreed to go to dinner Saturday night with Jud.
Friday night, Kathryn slept through the night for the first time that week and awoke the next day feeling less antsy. To not brood over her argument with Laurel was easier when she was with Annalisa—their relationship was never strained, bitter, or filled with resentment. The shop was dead, so she flipped the Return sign and went out the back. The air was warm and tasted like gardenias. A shot of island sunlight hit the flagstones in the atrium garden between the buildings, and when she stopped to water the deep magenta bougainvillea blooms trellised up the walls, the pots of flowers and miniature citrus trees gave her a moment’s pleasure. Intricate pottery bird feeders she made on sunny days hung from the eaves, where a hummingbird with red feathers flitted in and out, and she could hear laughter in the courtyard nearby.
Her studio smelled earthy and burnt inside, the scents of damp clay and kiln firing. Glass covered the whole south side of the studio and the light was always good, so good that sometimes entering the studio was like walking from a deep cave into the noonday sun.
Along the wall shelves was her latest collection of pottery. All of it was fired in the vibrant shades of the island, which were her signature—the aquas and tourmaline of the water, the deep amber of a Catalina sunset, the verdant greens of the hillsides, and the brilliant pink-magenta of the bougainvillea growing everywhere.
Annalisa walked out from the back room wearing a heavy brown canvas potter’s apron with the chalky remnants of dried clay on her face and hair and spattered all over the apron front, her thick red hair pinned up and half falling out of a sloppy topknot.
Kathryn took one look at her and said, “Looks like the clay won.”
Annalisa looked down at herself. Her shoulders sagged in defeat and she used the back of her hand to swipe the hair from her face. “I’m a lost cause. I’ve forgotten everything you taught me.”
“I told you it had been too long since you’d been here.”
“Every time I get the wheel spinning the stupid clay flies off!”
“Show me.”
“Okay, but don’t laugh.”
And Kathryn laughed before she even started.
“Oh, God.” Annalisa dropped her face into muddy hands.
“Sit.”
Annalisa unwrapped a clump of clay the size of a small head of cauliflower and dropped it in the center of the wheel.
“That’s your first problem.”
“What? It’s in the center.”
“They call it throwing for a reason. Scoop up the clay. Now throw it.”
Annalisa tossed it on the wheel like a softball pitcher with a broken arm.
“Are you feeling all right?” Kathryn placed her hand on her granddaughter’s forehead.
“Why?”
“You have all the energy of a dying sloth.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s true.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Put some emotion into it. This is art. Art is emotion. It’s feeling. It’s passion, good or bad, elation or anger.”
Annalisa picked up the clay and slammed it onto the wheel so hard the sound exploded like a gunshot. She looked startled for an instant, then started laughing.
It was the first truly free emotion Kathryn had seen from her since she came. “That was an improvement. I don’t know what brought that passion on, but it worked.”
“I just had to picture his face in the center of the wheel and it was all so easy.”
“Whose face was it?”
“Matthew Banning.”
Kathryn felt the floor come up to meet her. She reached out and grabbed Annalisa’s shoulder. “Not you too.”
“Mamie? What’s wrong?” Annalisa stood up quickly and grabbed her arm. “Sit down before you fall down.” She opened a bottle of water and handed it to her. “Drink this. Your skin is absolutely gray.”
Kathryn sat there feeling overcome by dread. It was happening all over again, only worse. Some angry, mean God destined all the women in her family to be destroyed. His tool was the Banning men.
“Tell me why you’re so upset. What did you mean, ‘Not you too’?”
Kathryn was no good at lying about this. The name Banning was a trigger. It all spilled from her mouth like locusts. “I hate that name. Hate it. Your mother was almost destroyed by the Bannings.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Jud Banning was the reason your mother ran away to France.”
Jud found that everything was easier for the next two days. He whistled at work, which drew a few confused stares, walked faster, and wiped up the floor with his squash buddy at the health club. He sang in the shower. Saturday morning, outside in the driveway of his waterfront town house, he washed and waxed his cars, a white Suburban, a black Mercedes, and the MG. That evening, when he was taking a shower, it crossed his mind that Victor’s parties weren’t casual. Cale’s wife, Robyn, had taken them over years ago and no one had changed anything since she died. So it had become a tradition for them to be held at Cale’s place, a rambling, open home on Harbor Ridge with great views and a pool and basketball court.
Jud drove to Laurel’s place too early, stopped and had a drink at a small bar near the Huntington Beach pier while he watched the clock, the people flying kites in the evening breeze and walking their dogs on the beach as the sun set.
Her porch light was on but it wasn’t really dark yet. A pair of gardening gloves and rubber clogs caked with sand were next to the mat, and a gray tabby rubbed up against his slacks, whining impatiently at the door.
“Hello, fella.” He scratched the cat’s ears. “Locked out, huh?” Jud straightened and hit the doorbell, then shoved his hands in his pockets and waited.
Through the etched glass he saw her silhouette, and when she opened the door he was damned glad he’d found her again. “Hey, girl.”
“Not likely. I’m forty-eight.”
“What am I supposed to say, ‘Hey, middle-aged woman’?”
She laughed then. “Just let me grab my purse.”
“I’ll wait here.” He stood at the railing as the horizon melted to deep, dark blue; it was one of those nights when a sliver of a moon was already halfway across the sky and you could taste the salt in the air and feel the waves pound the sand a short distance away. He realized then his heart was pounding almost as loudly.
“I’m ready.”
“You look incredible, Jailbait.”
“You really can’t keep calling me that. What’s wrong with using my name?”
“Too impersonal.” He put his hand on her back as they walked toward the MG.
“You still have this car.”
“I’m not sure I could ever give this baby up.” A few minutes later they sped down Pacific Coast Highway. She wore the same perfume. The scent of years past filled the small confines of the car and was there in every breath he took. Songs on the radio filled the silence, and they didn’t talk for a few miles. When he turned onto Cale’s street, she was staring out the window, her hands folded tightly in her lap, hugging her purse against her stomach, and she looked uncomfortable. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
“It’s just a dinner party.” He pulled into the driveway, but stopped before pulling up to the valets they always hired.
“Who are these people? I guess I should know a little about them so I don’t make a complete idiot of myself.” He wasn’t certain how to tell her where she was. “Before we go inside, shoul
dn’t you tell me something about this dinner party?”
“Tonight’s my grandfather’s birthday celebration.” Jud tightened his grip on the leather steering wheel. “This is Cale’s house.”
“What?” She was white. “You told me it was a dinner party.”
“It is. Would you have come if I told you what it was and where it was?”
“No. And I’m not certain whether you’re trying to manipulate me or patronize me.”
“You always were too smart.” There was beat or two of strained silence. “I’ll take you home if you really want me to.”
“Okay,” she said, holding her purse tighter, eyes straight ahead. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t do anything but sit there and let her think about it, then gave it one last shot. “It won’t be that bad. You’ll have fun. You’re going to have to see them all at some point. Why not get it over with?”
“Why would I have to meet them if I never go out with you again?”
“Do you really think that’s going to happen?”
“Would you leave me alone if I told you I never wanted to see you again?”
“No. Would you really tell me that?”
“No.”
“Come on, JB. No one’s going to eat you alive in there.” She said nothing. “Okay, I’ll take you somewhere else.” He put the car in reverse.
She placed her hand on his. “No.”
Before she could change her mind he pulled the car up to the valet.
29
One of life’s supreme ironies was not lost on Laurel: we run from the people and things we should face, and we face head-on what we should run from as far and as fast as we can. So it was hard to know what made her walk through the door of Cale Banning’s home. People walked in and out of one another’s lives all the time without questioning or justification. But she was a runner, at least that was what she believed in those rare moments when she looked back on her life and questioned all her beginnings and endings. Life was all wrong; it would be simpler if she could just start with the end.
She expected the elegance inside, the limestone floors and custom furniture, imported rugs, the subtle alabaster fixtures, even the fine art. But it was the wall of glass overlooking an expansive view of Newport’s lights and the dark Pacific sea and sky that gave a feeling of vast endlessness, as if they were floating above the world.