by Jean Stone
Lisa turned her head away. Ginny could almost feel the sting of her tears. “It wasn’t an affair?”
“I was drunk, Lisa. That’s not an excuse, but it’s reality.” The bile settled down.
Her daughter was silent a moment. Then she turned to Ginny. “That’s not what he’s going to tell the tabloids.”
Ginny felt herself go rigid.
“He said unless we give him half a million dollars, he’s going to tell the tabloids everything. Everything, in his words. That he had an intense affair with his stepmother … the mother of Lisa Andrews.”
Rage surged through her. “That fucking son of a bitch. He wouldn’t dare.”
“I think he will.”
“It will ruin your career.”
“Yes,” Lisa quietly replied. “I believe that’s his intent.”
Ginny laughed a sick, disgusted laugh. “He’ll get more than that, too. He’ll also get revenge on me for getting Jake’s estate.” She clutched her hand against her stomach and wondered when—or if—her pain would ever end, and what the hell she’d ever done to deserve this kind of life.
On the way down to the ferry, Jess stopped at the Tisbury Inn. Luckily, they had a vacancy. She reserved a room for Phillip; he had not said how long he’d stay, so she booked it for two nights.
The late afternoon sun was being threatened by a slate-colored sky and a hint of fog. She stopped at the Black Dog Bakery and bought a corn muffin and a cup of tea, deciding that she must be hungry, though she didn’t really feel it. Walking across to the ferry pier, she passed the lines of cars awaiting the next boat, sat down in a small gazebo by the water, and tried to figure out what she was feeling.
Despair, maybe. Emptiness. Confusion. And a hapless, hopeless sense that she would never know her daughter, the baby she gave up.
The baby who now had a baby of her own.
If Melanie was hers.
Opening the small white bag, Jess broke off a piece of muffin and slowly chewed. She washed it down with a swallow of tea, then stared out across the water toward Cape Cod on the horizon, toward the town of Falmouth, where Miss Taylor had once lived, and wondered why she couldn’t leave well enough alone.
From the way Richard’s father sounded, Melanie was happy. A young mother with a career she loved. What right did Jess have to step in and shake that up?
And then she thought of Ginny. And Lisa. And how the two of them had back-and-forth problems not unlike the ones Jess and Maura had. Not unlike the way the real world worked. And yet the bond between them hadn’t yet unraveled.
A seagull landed on the floor of the gazebo, his black eyes shifting from the small white bag to Jess then back again, as though his X-ray vision knew that there was food inside. Just as she began to open the bag to feed the gull, a little bird landed on the bench across from her, and looked at her with pleading eyes.
She tossed a piece of muffin toward the little bird. The gull flapped its wings and flew up to the bench, startling the bird, scaring it away. It gobbled the morsel, then returned to the floor at Jess’s feet.
“Scavenger,” she said. “Couldn’t you save some for the little bird?” Angrily, she closed the bag. The seagull would get nothing else. She stared down at the beady black eyes that stared back at her. It struck her that the bilge-colored creature was only doing what it needed, that it was only fighting for survival. She thought of Maura and her need to fight with Jess about finding her other daughter. Maybe it was Maura’s way of fighting for survival, struggling to retain her place within her mother’s heart, fearful that she would be dislodged. Tears formed at the corners of Jess’s eyes. She reached back into the bag, broke up the crumbs of muffin, and tossed them at her feet.
The blast of a ferry horn sounded. Jess looked up to see the massive iron beast pull into the dock. She rose and started to walk toward it just as the little bird returned. Quickly, she bent and scooped up some crumbs, and set them on the bench. The little bird descended. The gull did not seem to notice. Now both were fed, and both were satisfied.
Jess wiped her eyes and hurried to greet the boat.
The ride on the ferry had been queerly similar to Manhattan rush hour on the subway, the crowd of eager people jockeying for the best position while the vehicle lurched and lumbered its way toward their destination.
Phillip discreetly held his stomach as the boat bumped against the pier and wondered how anyone could possibly feel seasick on a forty-five minute trek across the water that wasn’t even open ocean, more like a large lake with a tide. He stood in line, waiting for the chain to be removed from across the gangplank or whatever it was called, gripping the handle of his small bag that held only clean underwear, a different shirt, and running shorts in case he had the time. His mission, after all, would be quick: He would simply confront this Mr. Bradley, the way he had confronted William Larribee. They would learn the truth once and for all, and Jess could get on with her life. And he with his. If there was much of one remaining, now that Nicole apparently would not be in it.
A deckhand dressed in jeans removed the chain; the crowd jostled forward, Phillip among them, wedged between an Asian family with several cameras around their necks and a yuppie-looking couple with a black Labrador retriever on a bright red leash. As they herded down the walkway, he kept his gaze fixed on the yuppie woman, khaki shorts pressed neatly, a white T-shirt clean and neat, a visor cap set atop her blunt-cropped, blond-streaked hair. He watched her walk and tried not to envy the yuppie man, but could not help himself. He imagined their home, with light oak woodwork and gleaming floors and fat earthen jars holding clusters of tall flowers. It only made him seasick again.
They stepped down onto the pavement—onto land, thank God.
“Phillip!”
Phillip pulled his gaze away from the khaki shorts and looked up to see Jess approaching, her hair wispy in the breeze, her smile warm and friendly, the kind, sweet woman without whom he would never have met his mother.
“Jess,” he said, accepting her gentle hug.
“Did you have any trouble getting across?”
“Not as long as I left my car there. In some town called Falmouth. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s fine. You won’t need your car. Falmouth is where Miss Taylor lived.”
“Ah, yes,” he tried to say cheerfully, “the infamous Miss Taylor who’s at the bottom of it all.”
Jess laughed. She looked off toward a gazebo, blinked, then looked back at him. A look of fear now filled her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Phillip asked. He followed where her gaze had gone and saw that a woman was standing at the gazebo, a woman dressed in a white jersey and red sarong. “Who’s that?”
“Karin,” Jess said quietly. “Richard’s sister.” She steered Phillip from the area. “I think she knows why we’re here, Phillip. I think she’s the one who summoned me.”
He smiled. “Are you sure you’re not being paranoid?”
Jess gave a small, forced laugh. “You’re right. I probably am.”
He nodded, and they wove their way through the crowd and the cars and the black Labradors on leashes. He wondered if the black Lab was the official dog of the island.
“I’m sorry,” Jess said, “but I left the car at the inn. I needed to walk.”
“No problem. I sure could use a Coke, though. My stomach’s a little queasy.” He would never have admitted that to Nicole or, probably, to any other woman he’d dated. But Jess was so … motherly, despite her tiny frame, despite the fact that he towered over her and felt compelled to protect her. He felt he could tell her anything, much as how he had felt with P.J. He wondered if that was how most children felt with their mothers, then wondered why he never had with Jeanine Archambault, the woman who had raised him.
“The Black Dog Tavern’s over here,” Jess said. Phillip followed her through a maze of ancient-looking, weathered structures that looked more like shacks than buildings and were decorated with paint-worn buoys and wooden lobster traps
. He shared his observation with Jess about the black dogs that he’d seen; they laughed again and he felt better now and so glad that he’d come, so glad that he had stood his ground and not caved in to Nicole.
Inside the restaurant, they were seated on a glassed-in porch that overlooked the water and the madness of the ferry. They ordered: Jess, tea and a salad; Phillip, a burger and large Coke.
“I’m not sure why you wanted to come,” Jess said. “I’m so embarrassed that I broke down on the phone.”
“I came because I wanted to,” he responded. “If you’ll let me, I want to confront Mr. Bradley. I want to ask him directly about his daughter Melanie.”
“Oh, Phillip, I’m not sure …”
“I think it’s the only way we’ll know, Jess.”
“But if Melanie really is my daughter, wouldn’t he lie? She’s almost thirty years old. Why would he tell the truth now?”
“Maybe she already knows the truth.”
Jess shook her head. “I wondered about that. But if she knows that Richard is her father, why would they have sneaked here from Connecticut? Why did they vanish from their hometown? Why did they change their name?”
“Because I expect your father demanded it. It was probably a stipulation of his payment.” He put his hand over hers. “Please, Jess, let me ask him, and we can put a stop to this once and for all. No more waiting for elusive people to show up; no more wondering if this other daughter of his is out to get you.”
“I’m not sure, Phillip. I need the night to think about it, okay?”
“Of course.” He pulled back his hand and spread his napkin in his lap. “In the meantime, I’m famished.”
“So are we,” said a woman who appeared beside their table. “Can we join you?”
The woman looked vaguely familiar.
“You must be Phillip,” she said. “Only a New York suit would show up on Martha’s Vineyard in a tie.”
“Phillip,” Jess said, “this is my friend, Ginny.”
“And this is my daughter, Lisa,” Ginny said, stepping aside and gesturing to the young woman behind her.
He stood up quickly, his napkin sliding to the floor. “Nice to meet you,” he said, loosening his tie with one hand, extending the other to Ginny, and having a difficult time pulling his eyes from her daughter, the most beautiful woman Phillip had ever seen.
Chapter 17
They were growing in numbers.
Karin stood beside the bench outside the Black Dog Tavern and peered inside at the two women and the new ones: the young woman and the young man, looking almost as young as Melanie. She had no idea why so many had come, but she decided it could only work in her favor: more people usually resulted in greater chaos—you didn’t have to live in a vacation spot to know that.
She also knew it was too late. She had started something that could not be stopped now, any more than tourists could be stopped from coming in summer or bits of sea glass could be stopped from eventually making it to shore.
Moving from the window, she tiptoed away, her adrenaline escalating with each barefooted step. Surely, she had not felt this alive with anticipation since those long-ago months of waiting for Brit. Now all she had to do was wait. The explosion, she knew, would come soon. It was time to prepare the ammunition.
• • •
“If you’re such a hotshot attorney,” Ginny said once they were seated, “tell me how to have someone killed and not be found out.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Phillip said, sipping his Coke, still trying to keep his eyes off Lisa, off her tawny hair and topaz eyes, off her skin that looked as if it would feel like silk on his fingertips. He tried to stop himself from leaning across the table to see what scent she wore: Would it be lightly musky like Nicole’s, or the aroma of vanilla, pure and clean and so inviting? “Besides,” he added with a smile, “I’m a corporate attorney. I don’t deal in criminal cases.”
“Who are you planning to kill, Ginny?” Jess asked.
Ginny leaned back on her chair and stared off toward the water. “My stepson,” she said without hesitation. “He’s trying to blackmail us for half a million dollars.”
Phillip nearly choked on his straw. “Blackmail?” For someone who spent his days and often his nights in the tedium of corporate law, the word “blackmail” seemed to be popping up with strange frequency.
“I guess it’s the price one pays for stardom,” Lisa said quietly, a touch of cynicism in the low, husky voice.
Stardom, Phillip thought, and then he recognized her. This was not merely Lisa, Ginny’s daughter. This was Lisa Andrews, leading lady of Devonshire Place, one of the few things that made TV worth watching no matter how many briefs there were to write, no matter how many cases there were to read. He moved a little on his chair and tried to pretend it was no big deal that Lisa Andrews was sitting across from him.
Ginny shrugged. “I don’t think Lisa has anything to do with it.”
Of course she doesn’t, Phillip wanted to say. Despite the caustic character she played, it was well publicized that Lisa Andrews was the epitome of niceness, a star without the hint of a chip on one of those smooth, lightly tanned shoulders so invitingly accented by the halter top she now wore. She wouldn’t be involved with anyone unsavory.
“It’s my own fault,” Ginny continued. “Brad and I had a night of … shall we say, indiscretion. But it was years ago. Now he’s threatening to lie to the world, turn it into an affair, and destroy Lisa’s career.”
“How would it destroy your career?” Jess asked Lisa.
Ginny answered for her daughter. “Because half the world already knows she’s the one sleeping with Brad now.”
Phillip took a huge bite of his burger to hide his disappointment and the fact that he was among the other half of the world who had not yet heard.
Lisa paled. “Ginny …”
“I know, I know. It’s over. He’s back in L.A. where he belongs. But it’s not over for us. I’m afraid it’s only just beginning.”
Phillip cleared his throat and tried to sound professional. “Would it really ruin Lisa’s career? It seems to me that today the more dirt people learn about celebrities, the more they pay attention to them. Why not let him go ahead and do it? Call his bluff. From what I understand, the average extortionist doesn’t have the courage to go through with the threats.”
“Brad isn’t average about anything he does,” Lisa replied.
Ginny laughed. “It would be bad enough if he told the truth. But he’s always felt a need to be larger than life. To make everything much more grand—or more sordid—than it actually is. Or, in this case, was.”
“Truth,” Jess mused, picking at her salad. “Why is it that even honesty can get us into trouble?”
“Whoa,” Ginny said. “I thought you were the poster child for truth, justice, and the American myth. For honesty at any cost and all that crap.”
“I’m beginning to have my doubts. Phillip wants to challenge Richard’s father—one on one—and force him to tell the truth.”
“Hey,” Ginny said, popping an onion ring into her mouth. “Maybe we could kill him, too.” She chewed, swallowed, and added, “Then you could go and meet Melanie, I could go home and kill Brad, and we’d all have some godforsaken peace.”
Phillip picked up a ketchup bottle and doused his hamburger. “I didn’t hear that, either,” he said.
Jess had promised to sleep on it and let Phillip know in the morning if she wanted him to confront Dick Bradley. But as she stood in the Mayfield House living room after breakfast, studying the ticking clocks on the walls, she was no closer to making a decision than she had been last night.
In her heart, she knew she’d rather wait and talk to Richard herself, but she couldn’t be certain if that was because she felt it really was best or because a small spark within her longed to see him again—that same spark, no doubt, that was hell-bent on romanticizing, that same spark that had dreamed of his coming to Larchwood to
rescue her, to carry her off on his stalwart white stallion to a land where they would live happily ever after.
She realized that maybe she should just act her age now and let Phillip handle it. After all, he had taken the time to come to the Vineyard. Ginny had, too. They had taken their time to try and help her—maybe she should simply let them and stop dragging this out.
If only she could just see Melanie once. If only she could see her, then she would know.
“By the looks of this map, I need to borrow your car,” Ginny announced as she burst through the French doors into the room. “Lisa wants to do the tourist thing, and Dick insists we go out to the cliffs at Gay Head.” She snickered a little and looked down at the map. “Gay Head. I’m not even going to wonder where they came up with that name.”
Jess laughed. “Maybe you’ll learn something.”
“Yeah. Dick said it would help with my research if I learned about the island’s history. The Indians and all that.”
Looking at the map, Jess smiled. “You’re not doing a research paper, Ginny.”
“Hey, maybe I should. Maybe I should go to college. That’s not a bad idea.”
“To become what? What did you ever want besides being an actor?”
Ginny shrugged. “I don’t know. I never had the chance to find out. My mother wanted me to be a teacher. She thought it was the most respected career a woman could have. Mom, we all know, was big on respect. But can you imagine, me, a teacher? What a hoot.”
Jess tossed Ginny her car keys. “Take the car. Maybe you’ll find your vocation out on those cliffs. Maybe you can go back to L.A. and teach the surfers about the East.” Suddenly, Jess had an idea. She grabbed the map from Ginny’s hand. “I want to see something,” she said, and headed for a table made of driftwood and glass where she could spread out the map. “This is the whole island, right?”