Mother cocked her head. “Luanne asked me to come visit her.” This was announced with the kind of gravity that is usually reserved for the proclamation of a papal bull.
“Yes.” Thea nodded. “You’re right. She did, and that’s where we’re going today.”
“You, too?”
“For a while. I have plans for lunch, but I’ll be back to get you. Luanne wants you to meet her mother. You and she have a lot in common.”
This was met with a look of profound incredulity. “Don’t think so.”
“Fine,” Thea said. “If you don’t like it, you can leave.” She was counting on Luanne having freshly baked cinnamon buns—as promised—and was certain that her mother would find those absolutely irresistible. If not, well, she’d have to drag her mother along for her lunch with Whit Collins, and that was not a pleasant prospect.
The fragrance of oven-warm cinnamon buns greeted them as Luanne opened the door, and Mother had been a goner. She had barely doffed her coat and nodded to Luanne’s wheelchair-bound mother before she headed straight for the coffee table, where a stack of buns sat temptingly on a large platter.
Thea had stuck around to consume a cup of coffee and half a bun, then she had thanked Luanne profusely for the offer to watch over Mother while she went to meet Whit Collins for lunch.
“It’s my pleasure,” Luanne had said. “I could see yesterday that both you and your aunt were exhausted. It was obvious you two needed a break from your caregiver duties.” Thea had felt a wave of gratitude toward the woman and thought that perhaps she should revise her earlier appraisal that Luanne was not much more than a busybody who stuck her nose into everybody else’s business.
But when her hostess asked, “Do you know Whit Collins well?” with a simpering, knowing smile, Thea had to sigh inwardly. Maybe she had been right about the woman in the first place.
That was when she decided it was time to make her escape to go meet Whit. As she’d paused at the door, Mother had given her a dismissive flick of her hand and then proceeded to stuff another cinnamon bun into her mouth.
With some dismay, Thea surveyed the out-of-the-way restaurant Whit had picked for their lunch. He’d called it “the fish shack” and she’d thought that was him just being vague about the name of the place. Not so. The Fish Shack was indeed what it was called, with the emphasis clearly on “shack.”
It had once-white clapboard siding, fake cedar shake on the roof, and sagging green shutters. There was a concrete slab overlooking the river which Thea assumed would be filled with tables in warmer weather. But as she drew near, she spotted a single white, plastic table with a tall, outdoor gas heater close by. Above the table was a semi-festive, green-and-dirty-white striped umbrella, and Whit was huddled underneath it, wearing a heavy overcoat and dark glasses.
He’s embarrassed to be seen with me, Thea couldn’t help thinking as she waved back at his beckoning hand gesture.
As she approached the table, he made a half-hearted attempt to get to his feet. “Don’t bother,” she longed to say, but instead she smiled and extended her hand, hoping to make it clear that this lunch was strictly business on her part. “Good to see you,” she lied.
Whit held her hand for several seconds longer than necessary. “You, too,” he said, and tried to pull her arm toward him as if he were planning to give her a kiss.
Thea pulled back awkwardly and bumped against the table, rocking whatever clear liquid Whit had been drinking. “Oops, sorry,” she said, laughing at the look of dismay that crossed his face. Which bothered him more: the spilled booze or her resistance to his kiss? “Just as clumsy as ever,” she said, feeling for a chair and settling into it.
She was pretty certain that this was not going to be a lunch that she’d want to press into her book of memories. Later, she’d reflect on just how wrong she was.
CHAPTER 41
Whit was fidgety, glancing around as if he expected both the FBI and Homeland Security to show up any second, guns drawn. His nervousness actually helped Thea relax. When a waiter showed up to ask if she wanted something to drink, she pointed at Whit’s glass. “I’ll have what he’s having,” she said, her tone a deliberate challenge.
Whit lowered his sunglasses and stared pointedly at the waiter. “It’s water,” he announced. “Just plain water.”
The waiter apparently did not get Whit’s directive. He came back with a glass filled with ice and a clear liquid, and when he plunked it down in front of her Thea was not surprised to discover that it was straight vodka. “Mmm, good water,” she couldn’t help commenting. “But I thought I’d heard that you were a friend of Bill W?”
Whit’s eyes were hidden again by the sunglasses, but she could see a grimace in the set of his mouth. “Look, I am in AA,” he muttered. “It’s just today I needed a little...liquid courage.”
“To talk to me?” Thea cocked her head. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
Whit took a sip of his “water” and gazed out across the river where a small speedboat was humming past. “You have no idea,” he murmured.
“Try me.”
A hesitation, a quick glance in her direction and then back to the river. “This is so much harder than I thought it was going to be.”
Thea took another sip of vodka—not her favorite form of libation, but she needed something to do while she waited Whit out. And it was a way of creating some kind of bond with him.
He brought his attention back to her. “Do you remember junior high school?” There was something so plaintive in his voice, as if he were asking her if she remembered living in Eden.
“Of course.” Thea dabbed at an ice cube in her glass, then flirtatiously licked the vodka from her finger, toying with him. “Did you know that I had a crush on you then?”
He blanched, then stared at her, a slow smile creeping across his face. “No kidding?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t kid about something like that. It was very serious at the time.”
Whit leaned toward her. “I didn’t have a clue.”
“That’s because I didn’t want you to. I was way too shy.”
He settled back in his chair as the waiter approached and they ordered lunch. Two “Catch of the Day” specials.
“What do you think the ‘Catch of the Day’ is?” Thea asked.
He smirked. “Perch. Always perch.”
She gestured toward the river. “I hope it didn’t come out of there.”
“Oh, the river’s a lot cleaner than it used to be,” he said, “back when we were kids.” He laughed. “Once, when I was a teenager, I remember falling in when I was water-skiing, took in a lot of water. I was sick for days.”
“So,” Thea said, her tone filled with irony, “there are some things that have improved around here.”
“Probably more than you think.” He took a long sip of his drink.
Thea’s patience with his opaque manner was growing thin. “Listen, Whit,” she said, tapping her fingernails on the plastic table, “why in the world did you make such a big deal of having lunch? First, you sounded as if you had something you really wanted to discuss with me, but then you have me meet you in this godforsaken place so nobody will see us together—”
“Is that what you think?” he interrupted. “That I’m embarrassed to be seen with you?”
She shrugged. “What else am I supposed to think? You might as well be wearing a trench coat and a pulled-down fedora.”
“No,” he shook his head. “I didn’t want us to be disturbed. If we’d gone to some place in town people would have been coming up to the table. You know how it is.”
“Fine,” Thea said, only partially buying his explanation, “but I wish you would just tell me whatever it is that you thought was so important we had to meet in person.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And then, once you’ve told me that, I have something else to discuss with you.”
He gaped at her for several long moments, then reached for his drink and finished it off.
�
�Oh, boy,” he said, lifting the empty glass to catch the waiter’s attention for a refill. “I don’t think I’m gonna like this.”
Thea sat back and watched him wait for the new glass of “liquid courage,” as he’d called it. She’d known quite a few recovering alcoholics in her time and she doubted seriously that Whit was a card-carrying member of AA. He might have gone to a few meetings, but he had apparently mistaken the Twelve Steps for an extended line dance in a country-and-western bar.
The refill came, he gulped it, and then was rescued by the arrival of the food. Thea was prepared to pick at the fish, but discovered it was surprisingly good. “Okay, we came here for the food,” she said, polishing off a large chunk of the excellent batter-dipped mystery fish. “I will grant you that.”
For the first time, Whit grinned. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”
Thea said nothing, but she was pretty certain that Whit wasn’t stupid at all. In fact, she might even bet that this whole scenario was playing out exactly the way he had planned it.
When he’d finished eating, Whit pushed his plate away and picked up his glass. “Did you know that our two families have a history together?” he asked.
Thea gave him the barest shake of her head. So he was finally getting down to the nitty-gritty; it had to be. That last line sounded like something he had rehearsed, over and over, trying to make it sound as casual as possible.
“Yeah, we do,” he said, apparently disappointed by her lack of reaction. To emphasize his point, he peered at her over the tops of his sunglasses.
“News to me,” she said. “What kind of history?”
His eyes shone, whether it was from the vodka or from her walking into his verbal trap, she couldn’t tell. His mouth curved up in a smug smile. “You really have no idea, do you?” Without waiting for her response, he added, “That’s what this whole thing has been about.”
CHAPTER 42
“This?” Thea repeated, certain that she was expected to. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”
Whit’s look went pensive and his gaze drifted back toward the river. “Man, I never knew you had a crush on me in junior high...”
“Well, what the hell difference does that make?” she snapped, bursting into his reverie. “I got over it years ago, believe me.” Then, because she thought that sounded a bit harsh, “And, anyway, you weren’t even around for our last year there. You went off to military school, if I remember correctly.”
His head practically did an impersonation of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, as Whit turned his attention back to Thea. “But that’s what I’m talking about,” he said, yanking off his sunglasses. “Do you have any idea why I went off to that fucking military school?”
Leaning as far back in her chair as possible, she shook her head mutely. Something in his eyes told her he was close to being out of control. The booze had given him more than courage; it had allowed him to access a rage that threatened to engulf him. She would not push any more of his buttons. He was already on overload.
“It was you!” he croaked out. “It was your fault!”
She sat astounded. Was he out of his mind? Had alcohol coddled his brain so much that he had lost touch with reality? “But, but, we barely knew each other,” she managed to say. “I don’t see how—”
“How!” His eyes were blazing now, his hand clenched into a fist. “‘How’, is my father saw you!”
She shook her head again, forcefully this time. “I don’t know your father. I’ve never even seen him, except in pictures in the paper.”
“Doesn’t matter!” Whit said, the side of his hand hitting the table. “He saw you!”
“But...” Thea started to protest, and then stopped. Images from this morning’s dream came back to her. Whit. That shadowy figure. A vague memory began to take shape in her mind. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Maybe I did see him one time. It was at a basketball game...”
“Right, that’s right...” He was calmer now, his eyes focused on hers as if he could will her to remember something she hadn’t thought about in almost forty years.
“You were there...”
He nodded.
“I came in late. My friends were holding a seat for me. It was a few rows above yours.”
Again, an eager nod.
“You were sitting right on the aisle. Your foot was kind of sticking out.”
He smiled. “I did that on purpose. To make you look at me.”
Bemusement puckered Thea’s brow. “Oh. I thought you were being a...”
“Jerk,” he said the word for her.
“No,” she countered, “not that. More like just a typical, smart-aleck, teenage boy.”
“Like I said—a jerk.” He grinned. “But I got you to notice me.”
“Oh, I noticed you all right. I was so afraid I was going to trip and fall. Actually, I think I wanted to trip and have you catch me, but that would have been too embarrassing.” She paused, remembering. “There was a man sitting next to you. At the time I didn’t think about it, but I realized later that it must have been your dad. He...stared at me.”
Whit took in a deep breath and let it out before he spoke. “He did a lot more than stare,” he said. “He grilled me. He wanted to know who you were—especially who your parents were.”
“My parents?” Thea said, puzzled.
“Particularly, your mother. I didn’t know what their first names were, but that didn’t seem to matter. He knew exactly who they were. He knew their names, and he kept repeating your mother’s name. Something with a D...”
“Daphne,” Thea said. “Her name is Daphne.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Daphne. He kept saying, ‘Daphne’s daughter. Daphne’s daughter.’”
“He knew my mother?”
Whit frowned. “I can’t believe she never told you.”
“Told me what?”
He sighed. “About their history.”
“Their history?” Thea parroted back at him.
Whit leaned back in his chair as if he were bracing himself for an extended discourse. “They were very young, kind of like Romeo and Juliet. Their families hated each other, or, at least my grandfather hated your grandfather. I don’t know why. When he found out that my dad had been seeing your mom, he went ballistic, sent him away. Off to military school.” His smile was bitter. “Just like me.”
She sat silent for several moments absorbing what he’d told her. “Well, I think I understand why my mother never said anything...”
“Yeah? Why?”
“She probably felt like she’d been...discarded. That would not sit well with my mother. She would have put it out of her mind, maybe found somebody else right away.”
“Well, that may be true of her,” Whit said, “but not of my father. He carried a torch for her for years. Still does.”
Thea was startled. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“But, he’s...”
Whit’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “He’s what?”
“I read George’s journal,” Thea explained. “He believed your father has Alzheimer’s.”
“Well, he was wrong.” Whit’s nostrils flared. “He didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“George discussed this with you?”
Whit didn’t answer for a moment. He looked as if he were debating something within himself, his eyes shifting from Thea to the table top, back to his hands in his lap. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, his voice quivery.
“What?”
A deep breath. “My father—”
From somewhere nearby a cell phone trilled. Whit jumped in his seat, obviously unnerved. He reached a hand into his pocket, pulled out his phone and stared at the screen. “Shit,” he said, as he swiped it with his finger. He pressed the phone to his ear. “What?”
He listened, his face stiffening into a mask of fear. “Oh, God, no,” he muttered. “I’ll be right there.” He ended the call, grabbed his sunglas
ses, and stood up, throwing some bills on the table. “I’ve got to go,” he said, already making his way through the tables toward the parking lot. “I’ll call you later,” he shouted over his shoulder as he reached his car.
Thea continued to sit, staring after him as his black Mercedes sedan pulled out of the lot, tires squealing.
Rousing herself, she got up and hustled to her own car, telling herself that it might not be a bad idea to follow Whit to see where he had run off to in such a hurry.
CHAPTER 43
Following Whit’s car was a snap. Thea could see it up ahead, perhaps four or five blocks away, weaving in and out of the mid-afternoon traffic. When he crossed the bridge and made the sharp right turn onto Rivercliffs Boulevard, she pretty much knew where he was going: either the park or the Collins family mansion, which stood adjacent to it.
As she drove along Rivercliffs, she made a quick call on her cell to Luanne Varner. “I’m sorry, I can’t explain, but I may be a bit late picking Mother up,” she said. She cut off Luanne’s response, “I’ll tell you all about it later. I can’t talk right now.” And with that she ended the call.
The Collins house was located along a curve on the wide, tree-lined boulevard. It was the prime spot of real estate overlooking the river, and beyond it lay Rivercliffs Park. The property attached to the house was extensive and blended almost seamlessly into the trees at the edge of the park. Thea had been here only once before. A summer intern working at the newspaper, she had been allowed to tag along with a society page reporter to a festive, mid-summer afternoon party. Her job had been to check the spellings of names of out-of-town guests for the article that would appear in the paper. The reporter couldn’t be bothered to do that, as she was too busy imbibing champagne and eating dainty finger sandwiches, while cozying up to Rockridge’s social elite.
Slowing as she approached the house, Thea could see Whit’s black Mercedes parked in the semi-circular drive. The driver’s door was ajar and a shimmer of exhaust was coming from its tailpipes. Whit had apparently leaped from the car without even turning it off.
What Has Mother Done? Page 23