Informed Risk: A Hero For Sophie Jones

by Robyn Carr

  “That’s because you don’t know her.”

  “What’s she going to do? Punch me out? Come on, relax. You call me if you need me. If she tries to kidnap you or something, we’ll take care of Aunt Flo.”

  “Make love to me,” she said. “Please. And don’t make love to me like it’s the last time.”

  “Is it? Is there any chance it’s the last time? If it is, don’t lie to me, that’s all I ask. Just tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t want it to be,” she said, but tears came to her eyes. “I swear, I don’t want it to be.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  The Sacramento airport was small, tight and busy. Chris parked her car as close to the terminal as she could, but it was still quite a walk. She held hands with Carrie and Kyle. They were solemn, though they didn’t exactly know why. They had been told about Aunt Flo, Mama’s aunt from Chicago whom they had never seen before, whom Mommy hadn’t seen in five years…since court. She didn’t tell them that part.

  Chris was so nervous about the reunion that she didn’t even indulge in people-watching. She simply found them seats right outside security and waited. And waited.

  The plane was late, but Flo got off quickly. She would have flown first-class. Naturally.

  And there she was, more stunning and powerful than Chris remembered. She was five foot eight and still wore heels. She was dressed in a mauve suede suit and a low-cut lacy blouse. She wore boots—probably eel-skin. Her coat, slung over her arm, had a white mink collar. Flo wore as many dead animals as she pleased. Her diamond stud earrings glittered behind her short auburn hair. She was gorgeous, aristocratic. Forty-one years old. Good old Aunt Flo. Be nice to her now.

  Chris saw her aunt spot them: she in her blue jeans, T-shirt, ski jacket and tennis shoes, no makeup, her hair pulled back into an unsophisticated ponytail; and two little kids who wore practically new but nonetheless rumpled clothes. Not a designer label among them.

  The two women rushed toward each other and embraced. Chris was reduced instantly to tears. It was like meeting her past, her longed-for, frightening, grievous, essential past.

  “Chris!”

  “Flo! Oh, Flo!”

  A camera bulb flashed.

  “Oh, hell!” Chris gasped.

  “Ms. Palmer, how long have you waited for this re-union?” “When did you first discover the whereabouts of your niece?” “Who died on that yacht, Ms. Palmer?” “Where will you be staying?” “Was any of the fortune recovered, Mrs. Zanuck?”

  Chris grabbed her kids, one with each hand. She took only two steps before she looped an arm around Kyle’s waist, lifted him onto her hip and headed down the concourse. Flo trotted after them.

  “My God, Flo!”

  “You think I invited them?”

  “How did they know you were coming?”

  “How the hell should I know? They know everything. Ever since that damn book came out!”

  “Can’t you get rid of them?”

  “How, exactly? Let’s just get out of here. Where’s the car?”

  “It’s in the parking lot! Did you think I pulled the limo up to the curb?”

  “You had to wear jeans? And those…shoes?”

  “What do you think? That my designer is all tied up? Jeez, my house burned down! Anyway, who cares what I’m wearing? I didn’t know it was going to be a damn press conference.”

  “Stop swearing. They’ll hear you swearing.”

  “You’re swearing.”

  “My luggage. Oh, forget the luggage. I’ll send someone for it later.”

  “What if they get it?”

  “Oh, they can’t get my luggage. Later,” she said to a reporter. There were only about six, but it seemed like six hundred. “I just want to spend some time with my niece. I’ll give you a statement later.”

  “You will not!” Chris said.

  “Just come on, all right?”

  They were followed to the parking lot. They were half running, dragging Carrie along.

  “Get a shot of the car! Get a shot of them getting into the car. Man, will you look at that car!”

  They were not followed from the airport, but by the time they had Flo settled in her suite—after warning the manager about reporters, having someone sent to the airport for the luggage, and making various other arrangements for Flo’s comfort—Chris was exhausted. And disgusted. She began to remember the photographers at the courthouse. When she won, she had had tears in her eyes, sensing if not admitting her betrayal. But Steve had been whispering in her ear, “Don’t cry, for God’s sake. Smile. Tell them you have no hard feelings, that you love your aunt, you know. Come on, we won.”

  We. There had never been any we.

  Flo hadn’t cried. “There should be no question of my motives or my relationship with my niece. I only attempted to protect her future as was spelled out in my brother’s will. She didn’t sue me, after all. I happen to think that it’s a mistake for her to contest her father’s wishes, but the court has made its decision, and we’ll certainly abide by it.” To Chris, later, Flo had said, “I am too angry to even talk to you. You just don’t know how foolish you are.”

  In Flo’s suite, Kyle bounced on the big round bed and Carrie carefully manipulated the buttons on the television. Flo spoke on the phone, ordering room service. Chris slouched in the chair.

  “Well, they’re sending up some sandwiches and sodas for the kids, salads for us, and I ordered a bottle of wine. We should toast this occasion, hmm? Then I think we should go shopping. I’m renting a car, and—”

  “Tell me about the stupid book.”

  “Well,” Flo said, sitting down gracefully, sliding into the chair and crossing her long, beautiful legs, “the ‘stupid’ book is exactly that. It is contrived almost solely from old newspaper articles and gossip and isn’t nearly as revealing as it claims to be. I’m sure a great deal of it is made up. And I think it’s been thrown together and rushed to print in the few months since that yacht has been missing. All of the pictures are previously published photos, and—”

  “Pictures?”

  “Oh, yes. How they got a baby picture of you is beyond me. Stole it, probably.”

  “Who did this? And why?”

  “The author’s name, Stephanie Carlisle, is a pseudonym. This is her third such exposé. She writes a decorator column for a Miami newspaper. The Miami paper ran a small piece about a missing yacht, a missing woman and an investigation of a man by the name of Steven Zanuck, the name under which the missing yacht was chartered. And I think I can tell you how this all started. That weasel’s third wife, not his fourth, was the daughter of a Texas millionaire. Naturally. Her father began investigating him, not liking in the least who his daughter had fallen for. I think it’s pretty certain that Steve took her off to Miami when things were getting a little hot in Dallas. We think, for example, that he might have married her before he was divorced from you. And we also suspect that he didn’t divorce his first wife at all—a woman he married when he was only twenty-one and living in San Francisco. Precocious little devil.”

  “What? Who was that?”

  “Sondra Pederson, daughter of a rich Swedish shipper. But that one wasn’t as messy as the other ones. He managed to get a bunch of money before Daddy flew from Sweden to San Francisco and simply collected his brokenhearted daughter. She’s alive and well and living with her family in Stockholm. That hasn’t been mentioned, however. It would probably hurt book sales.”

  “Jeez. It figures.”

  “He wasn’t a lawyer. No record of his ever having attending law school or taking the bar exam.”

  “Why didn’t we know any of this sooner? When I was stupidly trying to win my fortune?”

  “Believe me, if I had been able to find one thing on him, I would have used it. He checked out. There was a Steven Zanuck who passed the bar after graduating from law school in New York. There was even a yearbook picture that resembled your husband. He was pretty good at this litt
le scam. And, although I thought he was a weasel and a creep, I didn’t know the worst of it. It was that Texan, Charles Beck, who dug up the real dirt. And I think it’s possible his family paid the biggest price.”

  “You think they’re really dead, then? Steve and his—”

  “Fred.”

  “Fred?”

  “His name wasn’t really Steve Zanuck. In San Francisco his name was William Wandell, and in Texas he was Steven Wright. He kept a place and a small business under the name Zanuck for a while, kind of living a dual identity. It probably had something to do with monies he had received as Zanuck. His real name is Fred Johnson. And the real Steve Zanuck, a nice young tax attorney with a practice in Missouri, isn’t real happy about all this, either.”

  “Fred?”

  “Terrific, huh? Well, I always knew he was no damn good. Just couldn’t prove it. I hired detectives and lawyers, and they didn’t figure him out, either. Real slick, this lizard. I ought to sue them. Incompetents.”

  “Is all this in the book?”

  “This business about his aliases is our little secret so far. We’re going to have to do something about that hair.” Flo reached across the small table and plucked at Chris’s hair. Chris withdrew. “You know you shouldn’t wear your hair all the same length.”

  Chris put her forehead in her hand, leaning her elbow on the small round table. “Fred,” she moaned. “This is simply impossible.”

  “It’ll blow over. There’s a little money, I think. The Texan found some money, but maybe it’s not in this country. I wonder what the scum was saving up for?”

  “Does he have a lot of children, too?”

  Flo glanced at Kyle, bouncing, and Carrie, sitting entranced in front of the big TV. Her features softened. She looked back at Chris. “Not that I know of,” she said gently. “You should have called me so much sooner.”

  “I know. I know.” But then I wouldn’t have been pulled out of that fire, she thought. She almost told Flo about the philosophy behind It’s a Wonderful Life, but she held her tongue. Sophisticated Flo, who’d climbed to a mountaintop in Tibet to learn about meditation from the masters, would have a tough time swallowing something as effective as playing the hand you’re dealt. “Well, I figured you were pretty mad, Flo. I was trying to make it on my own, I guess. I’ve been working, taking care of the kids and writing.”

  “Writing? What?”

  “Never mind that. Not my life story, I promise. I was trying to take care of myself, trying to figure out what I really wanted to do. I’m getting a little tired of feeling stupid. I just wanted to make it on my own for a while. I thought I’d done enough damage. I wasn’t planning to never call you.”

  “Well, you should have called me. I was worried sick. Now, when are you coming back home?”

  Chris began telling her story. She tried to explain how for the first time in so long she felt free but coddled at the same time. This wonderful man and his lovely family had embraced her, and though they didn’t have many luxuries, within their tender assembly there was such a rich intimacy, such love.

  Room service arrived. They set up the kids at the table, and Flo brought the wine to the sitting room where Chris was telling her tale, knowing she sounded like a romantic fool. Yet another chapter in Chris’s novel of misguided fortunes, fantasies and foibles. Flo poured wine and sat listening, pulling a long, slender cigarette from her snakeskin case, inhaling, the smoke curling up past her perfectly enameled nails, past her rose-colored lips, over her artistically fashioned copper hair. Listening to this story of love and woe.

  “I always wanted to have a family,” Chris said. “A family like my family was. Even before Mom and Daddy died, I always figured that whatever I ended up doing, I’d be doing it in a home with a husband and children.”

  “Well, you have children,” Flo said.

  “I should have listened to you. I shouldn’t have married Steve—I know that. But I did, I have them, and in Mike’s home and in his family the kids have a sense of belonging. For the first time. I can see a change in them already—they feel more loved, more secure, at ease.”

  Flo did not comment.

  Chris told of parks, ducks, movies, stories read. “Imagine Carrie not knowing that men don’t shave their legs! And they love his cabin, the horses they rode. The cousins at Mattie and Big Mike’s.”

  “I can’t come up with cousins,” Flo said, “but the horses shouldn’t be a big problem.”

  “It’s more than horses and cabins and movies. As for me,” Chris said, “I had been lonelier than I realized. I had let myself become friendless. I hardly even noticed that I had lost touch with old friends who probably would have stood by me. Then, meeting the Cavanaughs, I saw the potential to have family and friends again.” She smiled almost sheepishly. “They liked me. Right off. Without knowing a thing about me.

  “And Mike,” she went on. “Logically I knew that all men aren’t men like Steve…Fred. But I had stopped believing it was possible for someone to care for me, no matter whether I was rich, poor, smart or dumb. This guy just opened up his heart and his home, no questions asked. It had nothing whatever to do with my bloodline or checkbook balance. I can’t tell you how it feels to have this man not give a damn about all that.”

  Flo stamped out the cigarette. She sipped the wine.

  Then, Chris tried to explain, he had needs, too. He wasn’t asking her for anything, really, but because his life had not been a picnic, this unit they had formed, the four of them, was helping him, too. He was finally getting in touch with what he had lost, what he could have, and was thinking in terms of having a real life again—one filled with love, people, give-and-take. Before Chris and her kids, Mike had cut himself off, afraid to feel, afraid to be involved.

  “The long and short of it is, I’m simply not ready to leave him. That doesn’t mean I’m planning to stay forever—I haven’t made commitments—but the four of us, well, we’re comfortable with one another when none of us has been completely comfortable for years. We’re recuperating from past hurts. It might not sound very practical, but it’s a good feeling to be needed.

  “I love you, Flo. I know I haven’t been very good family, the way things have gone. First the lawsuit, then disappearing like that. I’m sure you’ve been at the end of your rope with me, and I want to patch things up. I want to have our old relationship back. I want to be friends again. You’re the most important person in my life, my only family. But I’m not going to do everything you tell me, and I’m not going to leave Mike’s house until I’m ready. Until we’re healthier. All four of us.”

  Her eyes were locked tightly on Chris’s. Chris realized Flo probably thought her niece still had a screw loose, as though she had moved from one absurd situation to the next. But for the first time in seven years Chris felt sane. And—another first—she felt tough enough to deal with Flo. She lifted her chin, waiting.

  “Well,” Flo said, as composed as ever, lifting the wineglass, “how long do you think this is going to take?”

  Mike had finally talked about it. He had told Jim some of this incredible tale. He had come right out and said it, that though he probably sounded like a lunatic, he had fallen for this goofy woman and her kids. And it was true, like the story in the paper said, she had been pretty well kicked around by that jerk she had married, but she hadn’t known it was all a scam from the start. Young, you know, grieving over her dead parents, no one but her old-maid Aunt Flo, and then along comes this good-looking, fast-talking lawyer, and bam! Before you know it the whole family falls apart over money. Figures, huh? Money and sex, the biggest problems in America.

  And yes, he had said, he’d told her to stay for as long as she wanted. He hoped it would be for a long time because he liked it; it was good to take someone to his mom and dad’s, not go alone. They loved the cabin, all of them. Especially the kids. For a few years now he’d been thinking of building a room on. Maybe this spring he’d get started.

  These complications f
rom her past? Well, he had said, who didn’t have a past, huh? His past, for example, wasn’t very tidy, all things considered. She had to try to reconcile with her aunt, keep her family together somehow. She hadn’t taken any of her aunt’s money, of course, only her own. She didn’t need money right now, but everyone needs family. So he had encouraged her to be as patient and kind with old Aunt Flo as she possibly could. This would all work itself out.

  The afternoon paper arrived. Mike had been playing Ping-Pong with a couple of the guys. Jim walked in and stopped the game, spreading the paper on the game table. At least it wasn’t the front page. The headline said REUNION. The airport scene. Blue-jeaned Chris was being embraced by a tall, fashionable woman who looked to be about Mike’s age. She wore jewelry everywhere, big jewelry. She carried a fur coat and a briefcase.

  “Old Aunt Flo,” Jim supplied.

  “Holy shit,” Mike said. Then he picked up the paper and took it into the bathroom.

  Chapter 9

  Mike entered his house quietly. He peeked in at the sleeping kids. Cheeks, the great watchdog, asleep on the end of Kyle’s bed, didn’t even greet him. Cheeks was exhausted from spending the entire night eating a pair of Mike’s socks. He was sleeping with the remnants still under his chin.

  When Mike found Chris in his bed, still asleep, he felt his chest swell with pride. He felt as though he were in possession, as if he had won. He didn’t mean to feel that way, but he did. He wondered how many more mornings he’d leave his shift wondering what he’d find at home. He sat down on the edge of the bed, gently, and kissed her. “Hey, sleepyhead,” he whispered.

  She moved a little, moaning. “You had fires,” she sleepily informed him. “I can’t sleep through those sirens.”

  “I can’t sleep through them, either.” He laughed. “I’m going to have to sleep today though—I’m bushed. I saw Aunt Flo.”

  “You saw her?” Chris asked, coming awake, sitting up. “Where?”

  “In the paper. Your picture was in the paper.”

  “Oh, yeah, I should have thought of that. There were reporters at the airport, but we ditched them. Was the story awful?”