There was a noise now, a voice, and for a moment she thought it had come from inside the house, from the woman downstairs. She listened, but now there was silence. The noise hadn’t come from the house at all, but from somewhere below. She heard it again now—clearly a woman’s voice out in the darkness of the yard, and somebody trying to quiet her down. Was the woman hurt? Betsy’s heart sped up, and she found herself breathing too fast. She knew she was hidden from most of the yard, safely out of view, and she stepped down onto another, lower limb on the opposite side of the trunk, and then edged out along it, holding onto an overhead branch. She was level with the kitchen window now, and the foliage was thin enough so that she was clearly visible in the light from the porch lamp and through the window itself. Still, she had to see. …
She bent down, holding on tight, and peered through the branches where the leaves and twigs were scant, and there, across the lawn, beyond the edge of the tower, a woman in a long dress knelt in the moonlight. She was apparently wet, and there was water splashed on the stones of the well, as if she had just climbed out of the water. She stood up shakily, took two steps forward, and sat down hard, and then put her face in her hands as if she were utterly lost and miserable.
Betsy stood staring at her for a moment, struck by the dreamlike strangeness of her sudden appearance, dressed like this, as if she had wandered out of a movie, or out of the past. Why had she been in the well? She couldn’t have fallen in, not with the high stone wall around it.
Betsy dropped her empty book bag to the ground, turned around, held onto the limb as tightly as she could, and dropped, catching herself in mid-fall and then letting go. She landed hard and fell to her knees, and then, leaving the bag, she ran across the lawn and knelt at the woman’s side. She still hid her face, as if she couldn’t bear to see, and Betsy put her hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“Do you need help?” a man’s voice asked, the whispered question directed at Betsy. She gasped and stepped back, turning toward the tower. An old man stood some few feet away, his finger on his lips. He must have just now come out of the darkness from behind the tower. She could see from his clothing that he was a priest. She could also see that he was nervous, hurried. His eyes watched the distant grove uneasily, as if he expected that at any moment someone else might step out of the darkness.
Betsy glanced back at the house now, at the door into the side porch. She could see Phil sitting in the living room, the woman opposite, near the fireplace.
“Wait,” he said, as if he knew that Betsy was thinking of running. He smiled at her. “Help me with her first. Her name is Jeanette, and she’s come a long, long way.”
27
PHIL WAS SURPRISED to see that it was Elizabeth at the door, although it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise. He took the basket from her and let her in, and she tossed her purse and jacket down on a chair by the door as if she felt at home there. She smiled at him and said, “I want to make amends—for the way I treated you the other night, when you were so gallant and all and I was such a crank.”
Inadvertently, Phil thought about Betsy, sitting upstairs in her room alone, and he glanced back toward the stairs.
“You’re not alone?” Elizabeth asked.
“No.” Here was another new puzzle for him to work out. The house wasn’t his anymore. “My niece is upstairs,” he said to her.
She looked at him blankly for a moment, as if she expected something more than this. “What are you suggesting?” she asked.
“I mean she’s living with me now. A lot’s happened since I saw you last. I’m suddenly an adoptive father.”
“Well, you’re that type,” she said.
Now he looked at her blankly.
“I mean you’re the father type. Your niece has come to the right place.”
“Thanks for saying so. I’ve had my doubts over the last couple of days.”
“Have I come to the right place? That’s what I’m wondering.” She smiled at him and raised her eyebrows. “Don’t answer that,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said it. I’d love to meet your niece. Find a couple of glasses, though. … Unless I’ve come by at the wrong time? Is that what you meant by your niece being upstairs? That this was a bad time? I should have called.”
“No,” Phil said. “It’s fine.”
“I’ve got gas in the car this time,” she said. “If I’m in the way, just tell me and I’ll scoot.”
“Sit down,” he said, taking the wine out of the basket and heading into the kitchen for a corkscrew.
He realized now that he wasn’t really surprised at all that she had stopped by. The other night things had fallen apart because of all the running around out in the groves. Both of them had ended up cold and wet and tired. And besides that, seeing what had looked like a face in the well had put an edge on things, at least for Phil. Elizabeth hadn’t seemed to react to it at all, and he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. That was one of his first rules around interesting women: don’t talk like a nut until you know her better. And he had been clear-headed enough the next morning to know that the face had merely been the moon’s reflection working on a nighttime imagination.
He pulled the cork out of the wine now, took two glasses out of the rack, and went back into the living room. Elizabeth stood by at the fireplace mantel, scrutinizing a copper plate that stood on a wooden rack.
“It’s probably dusty,” he said, putting the glasses down and pouring the wine.
“I don’t mind dust,” she said. “This copper butterfly plate is very valuable, you know. It’s a Digby Brooks.”
“Is it? That’s good—a Digby Brooks?” He sat down on the couch.
“You’re joking with me,” she said.
“No, I’m serious. I love the name, though. I wish my name were Digby Brooks.”
“If your name were Digby you’d be seventy or eighty years old, since that name went out when internal combustion came in. Seriously, though, if you ever want to sell it …”
“You buy copper plates?” He handed her a glass of wine, which she set down without tasting first.
“I’m in the antiques business.”
“Are you?” he asked. “It’s funny, but I really don’t know anything about you.”
“That is funny. I rather like being a woman of mystery, but now you know what I do. I buy and sell old things.”
“That’s why you were so interested in that little spoon you found in the well the other night?”
“Yes. That’s why I lost my temper when I dropped it. Sorry about that. To me, the best kind of old thing is the one you find by accident. It’s not half as interesting to be offered things by people who know what they are. You end up worrying about profit margins, you know? You might as well be buying and selling produce. Everybody wants to sell you their grandmother’s wedding ring or doilies or Bible or something, and they always think that complete junk is worth a fortune.”
“You ever find anything valuable by accident?”
“A few times. I found a Ming dynasty vase once in a junk store on the Coast Highway above Morro Bay. And I found an Egyptian comb made of amber that dated back to the time of Tutankhamen. And once, in a box of old textbooks, I found a Latin primer that belonged to Toulouse-Lautrec. It was full of sketches in the margins.”
“That must have been worth more than a Digby Brooks.”
She shrugged. “The boss could tell you. I got a finder’s bonus, which bought me a sweater.”
It occurred to him suddenly that she might simply be lying, trying to capture his interest, pulling fabulous names off the top of her head.
“Look at this. I’ve been carrying this around just in case.” She handed him a slip of paper apparently cut out of a magazine. It was a classified ad regarding a piece of glass, probably a paperweight, incredibly valuable. The description of the thing was murky—a bluish glass crystal, vaguely dog-shaped, very worn, like beach glass. There was nothing in the description to warrant the incredible value.
“Wow,” he said. “This doesn’t sound like the kind of thing people just find, somehow. You know what I mean. It’s worth too much.”
“Actually, it’s just that sort of thing. This very glass curio is actually supposed to be in this area, in this part of Orange County. It’s from around here, dating back a hundred years or more. Think about it. Somewhere, probably in some really old farmhouse like this, there’s a crystal paperweight that’s worth more than the house itself is worth. And whoever owns it probably doesn’t have a clue. They’ll probably sell it in a yard sale for a dollar. I hope they do, as long as it’s me that buys it.”
He recalled her interest in his mother’s trinkets, and he wondered if she had come back around at least partly to resume an interrupted search. “Why would anybody pay that much for a piece of glass?” he asked.
“It’s apparently cut out of a single gemstone, a solid piece of transparent sapphire.”
“Is there such a thing?” Again it seemed unlikely to him, like the King Tut comb made out of Egyptian amber.
“Somebody thinks so.” She held up the advertisement. “Actually, transparent sapphire was mined in the Middle East, in Persia, but there hasn’t been any of gem quality found in a couple hundred years. So this is genuinely old. It’s not the kind of sham antiques that fill up most of the antique shops around town. Anyway, as I said, it’s supposed to have disappeared in this area a century ago. Some lucky person’s got a fortune sitting around in a dusty old china cabinet and doesn’t know it.”
“I wish it was me,” Phil said. “Then you could identify it, and I’d be rich. I’d buy you a sweater.”
“How come you’re not rich?” she asked. “You’re sitting on six acres of amazing real estate. Of course you’re rich. What do you do for money, sell avocados?”
“I do sell avocados, actually, but that’s not my work. I don’t prune or pick or ship. I hire that out to a packinghouse and skim off the profits. I inherited the grove.”
“So what do you do when you’re not skimming off profits? Oh, that’s right. You’re a photographer. You’ve got a darkroom. I hope you don’t tell me you’re a fashion photographer.”
“I’m a nature photographer, actually. I sell a few things to magazines. I’ve put together a couple of coffee-table books, mostly photographic, some text. Right now I’m doing a book on wildflowers in the Santa Ana Mountains.”
“Really? That’s very artistic—a man who loves wild-flowers. Are yours here?” She pointed at a row of oversize art books in the bookcase near the fireplace.
“Both of them,” Phil said.
She looked at the names on the spines, found one of his, and slipped it out of the case. “These are gorgeous,” she said, sitting down next to him and opening the book to a photograph of a stormy sky over what appeared to be endless ranges of mountains. The sky was unnaturally black, and the clouds billowed up over the ridges as if they were rushing forward, the horizon streaked with falling rain. “Where did you take it?”
“From the top of Modjeska Peak. There’s a great view from the top, looking southeast toward San Diego.”
“And where’s this one?”
“Harding Canyon, a couple of miles up the creek. Doesn’t look like southern California, does it?” This one was a photo of a creek falling across enormous rocks. There was a deep pool in the foreground overhung with maples, the leaves streaked with autumn colors. Filtered sunlight shone on the pool.
“And now you’re doing wildflowers,” she said, sliding the book back into the case. “Tracking the savage wildflower.”
“You’d be surprised,” Phil said. “There’re wild tiger lilies as big as your hand back in the canyons. They’re worth looking at. More wine?” He saw then that her wine was untouched.
“Go ahead and pour some for yourself,” Elizabeth said. “I’m fine. I’ve got to start slow or else I get a little … loose, you might say. I’ll get around to it.”
To drinking the wine, Phil wondered, or to getting a little loose? She was sitting closer to him than was necessary, strictly speaking, and the thought came to him that there was an implied invitation, and he thought about Betsy upstairs again, not necessarily asleep. For the last three years he had been a childless bachelor, and Juliet had been the only eligible woman in his life. Now, on the evening of the very day that he was no longer childless and the house was no longer merely his … Slow down, he thought, catching himself.
“Don’t you have any of your prints hanging around the house? If I were a photographer I’d have them everywhere.”
He shrugged. “I put the finished prints in a file cabinet.”
“Where’s the ego gratification in that?”
“It’s … I don’t know. I guess that for me it’s in the work, you know. It’s partly an excuse to spend a lot of time hiking around in the canyons.”
“Now I discover you’re a humble man. You’ve got all the virtues.”
He found that he was silenced by this, and he was relieved when the phone rang. He went into the kitchen to answer it, leaving Elizabeth alone on the couch. No one responded when he said “hello.” The line was open, so he knew someone was there. He waited for a moment just to see if it was a wrong number, if they’d hang up, knowing they’d made a mistake. But they didn’t, and as soon as he knew that they were waiting him out, he hung up himself. He waited for the phone to ring again as he walked back into the living room, but it didn’t. This was the third empty call today. He stood leaning against the mantel now.
“Ghosts?” Elizabeth asked.
He stared at her. “What?”
“I was kidding. I swear I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you say ‘hello’ and then I didn’t hear anything else. I shouldn’t have been listening. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. I guess it was a wrong number.”
After an awkward moment she asked, “So where’s this niece of yours from?”
“Austin, Texas,” he said.
“She staying long?”
“Years, I hope. Her mother—my sister—died a couple of days ago.”
“That’s a shame,” Elizabeth said, sipping the wine now. There was another silence. “That’s hard on a kid. My mother died when I was young.”
Phil nodded. He found that he was troubled by her easy tone in regard to Betsy. The phrase, “this niece of yours,” had made him react, but now he leveled out again. Everybody had their own bad luck, their own story.
“She’ll survive,” Elizabeth said. “I did.”
There was an edge of bitterness to Elizabeth’s voice that made him realize how little he actually did know about her.
“Sorry,” she said. “There’s some unresolved stuff there, where my mother is concerned. Have you got any unresolved stuff?”
“I’ve still got half of an unresolved bottle of wine.”
“It’s good wine, too. Sit next to me and help me drink mine. It’s more than I can handle.” She patted the couch, but then she stood up, bent over, and reached into the basket that lay on the coffee table. “Chocolate,” she said, hauling a foil-wrapped bar out of the basket. “Semisweet. You’re tempted by chocolate, aren’t you? Chocolate’s your secret vice. Maybe we ought to leave it until some other night, what with your niece upstairs?”
“I … Sure. I guess so.”
“What do you guess? Look at you, you’re blushing! You’re so easy to make fun of.”
There was a sound behind them, and Phil turned around quickly and stood up. Betsy stood at the base of the stairs, as if she had just come down.
“This is Elizabeth,” Phil said. “Elizabeth, this is Betsy.”
“That’s my name,” Betsy said. “My name’s Elizabeth, but I go by Betsy.”
“How charming,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve always gone by Elizabeth. We were just saying that you were probably tired, having come all the way from Texas. It’s nearly eleven o’clock in Texas. In another hour it’ll be tomorrow.” She smiled at Betsy, who made an effort to
smile back.
“Can I talk to you, Uncle Phil?”
“Sure,” Phil said.
Betsy turned around and headed into the kitchen without another word. Phil said, “Just a sec,” to Elizabeth, and then followed along. On his way out he glanced around the living room, taking quick stock of things. “What’s up?” he asked when they’d gotten to the kitchen. “We making too much noise?”
“Not exactly,” she said.
“You hungry? We’ve got some ice cream in the freezer.”
She shook her head. “Can you make her go?” she asked.
He looked at her for a moment, trying to guess what the deal was. All of a sudden his life was full of cryptic women who didn’t want each other around. “Sure,” he said. “No problem. Is something wrong?”
She shrugged, then nodded. She didn’t seem close to tears, but she seemed serious.
“Give me a minute to get her out of here.” He patted her on the arm and went back out into the living room. He wasn’t surprised to find that Elizabeth was up and wandering around. She pretended to be looking at the books in the bookcase again. The panel door to the woodbox by the fireplace was slightly ajar, and he was fairly sure it hadn’t been when he had left the room. Apparently she’d been into things as fast as she could. Did she think that he had the fabulous piece of glass, and was hiding it from her?
“She okay?” Elizabeth asked.
“Worn out,” Phil said. “It’s been a hell of a hard day for her. I think I better spend a little time with her, reading or something. She’s not feeling all that well, but I think it’s caused by what went on over the last couple of days.”
“I bet you’re right. You’ve got all the instincts of the father type. I called it just right on that one. You’d better do your business or you won’t get your paycheck. You keep the wine,” she said.
“Thanks.
“I kind of like the father type,” she said, picking up her purse and sweater from the chair by the door.
The Rainy Season Page 14