Oh joy. Mary Lisa shook her head. “Nope. I left all my scenes in L.A.” She shoved her sister out of her bedroom and shut the door.
Kelly had been very busy. But why had she moved back home? To lick her wounds? But wouldn’t their mother be all over her? Well, maybe not. She’d see about that at dinner.
She hadn’t brought any dress-up clothes with her. Her mother would notice. Did she care?
If Mary Lisa had harbored the notion she could make it unscathed through a meal with her entire family plus her ex-fiancé, Mark Bridges, she knew now she’d been as bright as a Russian lightbulb. Three years was a long time, but since it appeared that no one and nothing ever changed, it ended up being like yesterday. The pot was still bubbling gaily under the lid.
MARY Lisa chewed slowly and lovingly on a blackened shrimp so deliciously hot and spicy it set her mouth to smoking. Mrs. Abrams had studied Creole cooking under Paul Prudhomme himself. Mary Lisa couldn’t imagine the great man preparing the shrimp any better.
She sipped a crisp dry Chardonnay, one of her father’s favorites, as she listened to her sister Monica talk about a cocktail party in Salem that the party bigwigs were throwing in her honor in a couple of weeks to introduce her to the important political rollers. “But most of the money’s in Portland,” she said. “Mark knows enough of the big-money people there to give us a start.” She gave him a tender look, lightly touched her fingertips to his cheek, and then she smiled across the table at Mary Lisa.
“She can charm lemon juice out of an onion,” Mark said. He toasted his wife, taking her hand and kissing her palm.
You obnoxious snake, Mary Lisa thought, you shed your skin so well, I’ll bet no one ever notices all the rot you leave lying in your wake.
She caught herself, surprised her feelings were still so strong. She’d perhaps expected some lingering rage, perhaps a dollop of remembered humiliation, but no, this was bone-deep disgust. How nice. She gave all her attention to her father, George Beverly. Ah, but he was handsome, tall, lean, auburn haired, with eyes so blue that some people who met him for the first time thought they might be colored contacts. She watched her father continue the conversation with his eldest daughter. “What do you think your opponent will do? Might he retire?”
Bless her father for giving her his wonderful voice-melodic, light and dark by turns, always compelling. She remembered how he could always talk her and her sisters out of teenage snits. As if he felt her staring at him, he looked up and smiled. She gave him a thumbs-up. He was dressed in black slacks, a fine white chambray shirt, and an Italian geometric tie. She’d always thought he was the finest-looking Beverly. To the best of her knowledge he’d never strayed from her mother, though he owned one of the largest construction companies in northwestern Oregon and had spent nearly all of his fifty-five years surrounded by women at home, where all her mother’s friends congregated, playing bridge late, she knew, so they could see him when he got home from work. He’d been the only boy in a gaggle of five sisters, and then the father of three girls. His mother, Aurora, had given both her son and her granddaughter her red hair and blue eyes, and her height. And her acting ability as well had come through to Mary Lisa, thank the good Lord. Aurora had never been in a movie or on Broadway, but she’d always acted in local theater productions in Seattle. When Mary Lisa was five years old, her grandmother introduced her to the stage. It had been a love affair since that first magic moment when she’d looked at Bottom lying in mountains of soft greenery with beautiful Titania cooing over him, feeding him peeled grapes. Such a wonderful memory. Monica’s voice brought her back as she answered her father, “Champ Kuldak ready to retire? I don’t think so, Dad. I doubt he’d willingly retire until they bury his carcass. But you’re right, he’s old enough to retire and fish or putter in a garden, whatever old men do. And after all these years, he’s finally vulnerable. I don’t think he’s going to do much. Rest on his record that’s mediocre at best?”
Mary Lisa saw the brief ironic smile play over her father’s face, but he said nothing, only nodded. He turned to look at Mary Lisa. “As you can see, we’ve got lots of excitement going on here. I’m very glad you’re home, honey. It’s been too long and my Porsche is running a bit rough. Would you take a look at it?”
“At least it’s running,” she said, and laughed. “I’ll bet you it’s the plugs again. You and plugs, you’ve never learned to rub along well together.” She sat forward. “Do you guys know that when Dad visited me a couple of months ago, everyone wanted to know who the movie star was, and wanted to meet him?”
“How embarrassing for you, George,” Kathleen said with a delicate shudder.
“Not at all. I basked in the attention from all of Mary Lisa’s young friends. An old guy like me loves to have a couple of pretty girls smile at him.”
Mary Lisa laughed. “More like a dozen pretty girls, Dad.” She looked up at her sisters and Mark. “When I took him to the gym with me and my friends, I thought some of the women were going to jump him.”
Monica and Kelly beamed, but Kathleen frowned. Her husband said in a light voice, smiling toward his wife, “I tried not to sweat too much.”
Mary Lisa laughed again. “It’s great to see you, too, Dad. Don’t worry about your precious Porsche. I’ll look at it before you go to the office tomorrow morning.” She knew he was probably the only one in this elegant dining room who really loved her, and not only because she was the only one who was his female double in her coloring and body. They had spent so much time together when she was a girl that she could lay tile, set a window, fix a toilet, hang wallpaper with no visible seams, and coax his Porsche into running like it had when she was ten years old, the same year her grandmother had told her she was a born actress, shortly before she’d died of breast cancer.
It seemed the only thing her mother had given her was her supercilious eyebrows, which, as it turned out, Sunday Cavendish used often to excellent effect. Monica and Kelly, though, strongly resembled their mother-dark hair and eyes and willowy builds. Except Kelly was streaking her hair now. It was charming and sexy.
George Beverly said to Monica, “I hope you won’t spoil it for us, Monica. I’ve found over the years I rather like seeing both our federal and state governments gridlocked. That way it’s harder for the nincompoops to hurt us.”
Kathleen said, voice sharp, “Your daughter is not a nincompoop.”
Monica opened her mouth and shut it. Mary Lisa knew she wasn’t about to argue with anything her father said because she wanted money from him. Monica wasn’t stupid.
Mark laughed, his eyes on Mary Lisa. “True enough, sir, but at least if she does become a nincompoop, she’ll be the most beautiful of all of them. And Monica is your daughter after all. Maybe she’ll stay above the money-grubbing powermongers.” He continued seamlessly. “Mary Lisa, I haven’t congratulated you yet for all your success on Born to Be Wild. And you won another Emmy. Fabulous. I read in Variety you’re considered something of a phenomenon-the bitchier they make you, the more over-the-top you are, the more popular you become.”
Kathleen raised her now famous eyebrows in an incredulous and pitying look. “You actually read that sleaze, Mark dear?” Mary Lisa found herself studying her expression, and decided it was extraordinarily effective. Sunday should definitely take on that look.
Mark shrugged. “Naturally I’m interested in what Mary Lisa’s doing. But I haven’t quite stooped to buying the soap opera fanzines in the checkout line at the supermarket, except if Mary Lisa’s on the cover.”
Kelly said, “That’s because you never go to the supermarket, Mark. Hey, Mary Lisa, even I didn’t know you were on a cover of Soap Opera Digest last month until Heddy at the beauty shop mentioned it.”
Mary Lisa smiled in acknowledgment, but said nothing. It had been a fun shoot. Nor was she going to tell them that she’d be on one of the weekly covers again this month since she’d won the Emmy-she shared the cover with Bernie. The shoot had been a hoot.
Monica seemed
bored as she took a delicate bite of her Caesar salad, frowned at a crouton, and gently shoved it to the side of the salad bowl.
Kathleen said smoothly, “Of course we’re all happy for your success, Mary Lisa. But a soap opera-for heaven’s sake, where did that ridiculous name come from? A soap opera just fills up the day for bored housewives-well, I hope after leaving this part you’ll find some more meaningful parts. Isn’t it difficult to be prancing around like that, dressed like a tart, sleeping with every man in sight?”
Mary Lisa felt her stomach knot, but said easily, blessed humor coming from somewhere, “Goodness, Mother. Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”
Her father burst into laughter. “Bored housewives? You know, Kathy, in our main office, the TV goes on religiously every day at eleven o’clock with a viewership upwards of a dozen people. We call it our soap brunch hour. And everyone cheers when they see Mary Lisa. I love to watch you, sweetheart, and of course to try to figure out who will end up marrying whom with every new season.”
Mary Lisa nodded. “Too true. An unwritten rule is that the writers give a newly married couple about six months of marital bliss before they start messing with them.”
Kathleen was staring at her husband. “When did you start watching television at your office?”
Her father’s eyebrows went up. “I thought I’d told you, Kathy. The TV arrived the day Mary Lisa first started on Born to Be Wild.”
“A lovely big-screen, Dad?”
“It’s a forty-five-inch,” he said and laughed.
Kelly looked her sister in the eye. “And look what happened when you accepted that part, Mary Lisa. While you were down there, poor Mark was up here, all alone. Except for Monica. Was it six months before Monica messed you two up?”
FOURTEEN
“Is there ever anything you decide not to say, Kelly?” Monica asked.
Mary Lisa looked thoughtful. “How very odd. It was about six months, as I remember. Wasn’t it, Mark?”
“Maybe,” Mark said, unperturbed, a small smile playing around his mouth. “Six months, Monica?”
“This is ridiculous,” Kathleen said. “Stop it, all of you. It is not funny.”
George said, nodding, “I agree with your mother. Drop it. Now, sometimes I’m in a meeting or up to my ears in a project, and I can’t watch with everyone else. I’ll hear cheering or groans or boos from the outer office. Most clients who come in know exactly who you are and want to take a break, watch the show too. Rain or shine, I see you most every day, sweetheart.”
“I just hope it doesn’t reflect on us,” Kathleen said with a shrug.
“Why, of course it does. Everyone greatly enjoys watching our daughter perform so splendidly.”
Rarely in her nearly twenty-eight years had Mary Lisa heard that hard a voice out of her father. She’d heard it out of Sunday Cavendish, however, a goodly number of times. She cleared her throat. “The fact is, Mom, whether or not you like or even approve of soap operas, a whole lot of people do. Upwards of twenty actors and five different crews work very hard to produce about thirty-eight minutes of airtime for a one-hour show. They’re incredible professionals and I’m still learning from them every day. Did you know we have four different directors?”
“Four directors?” Kelly said, sitting forward. “Why?”
“There’s simply too much happening for any fewer than four. You could come down and visit the set-you’re all officially invited-and see how everything works.”
Monica nodded. “Thank you, Mary Lisa. I’ll definitely come down if I can ever find the time. I really have been wondering about something, though-why do they do your makeup so heavy sometimes? You’re a woman who’s supposed to be heading up a big corporation, and sometimes they make you look like a high-priced hooker with those dresses you wear.”
“Yep, too much cleavage for the boardroom, that’s for sure. Fact is, it’s part of Sunday Cavendish’s persona. She’s sophisticated and worldly, rich and ruthless as a snake. She does what she wants and that includes pushing the envelope with her clothes. I really like her, actually. She’s got guts.”
Mrs. Abrams said from the doorway, “I think you’re the most beautiful girl on the show, Mary Lisa, nearly as beautiful as your daddy.”
George Beverly choked, spewed wine out of his mouth.
“That’s the truth,” Kelly said. “Get over it, Dad.”
Mrs. Abrams never looked away from Mary Lisa. “I love to guess what new trouble Sunday is going to stir up. But you know, I sure hope she doesn’t sleep with her sister’s husband. No matter what she thinks of her sister and her mother, she still wouldn’t sleep with her sister’s louse of a husband. Would she?”
That innocently dropped bomb rendered the table markedly silent for a moment until Mary Lisa laughed. “I happen to agree with you. Who knows what the writers will do, Mrs. Abrams? I’ll be sure to pass along what you think.”
She looked up to see Mark staring at her, and there was something in his expression that disturbed her to her toes, something like regret, maybe.
Monica said, “Kelly, I hear you broke up with John Goddard and moved back home. What happened?”
Kelly shrugged. “I decided I’d had enough of him. He was going to push marriage soon. No way, not after that fiasco with Jared.”
Monica arched a perfect brow. “Oh? You had enough of him? That isn’t what I heard. A friend of mine was having dinner at the Beijing a couple of nights ago, saw you there with John, heard a bit of a scene before Jack Wolf came in to rescue him.”
Before Kelly leaped over the table to go for her sister’s throat, George pinned her in place with a look, then turned to Mary Lisa. “Did your mother tell you about our local murder?”
Mary Lisa shook her head.
“Jason Maynard, Marci Hildebrand’s husband, was beaten to death early this week, found by his wife in the garage.”
Kathleen said, “It’s awful. Marci’s mother, as all of you know-Olivia Hildebrand-is one of my best friends. She’s in awful shape, understandably torn up about it, and the police don’t yet know who killed poor Jason. I know it was a burglar of some sort, had to be.”
Mary Lisa said, “I’m very sorry, Mother. Mrs. Hildebrand always seemed like a nice person. A murder. It seems impossible, not here in Goddard Bay.”
Her father grunted, but didn’t look up from his wineglass, simply continued to roll the crystal in his palms. She saw her mother frown at him.
What was that about?
Her father looked up at his wife. “I’m sorry that Olivia is involved in this, Kathy. It’s got to be difficult for you.”
“More so for her. Jack Wolf won’t let her alone. She said Marci told him Jason was having an affair, but he hasn’t found out who the other woman is. Livie said it was probably some bimbo over in Cloverdale.” Her mother shrugged. “I suppose it must be true.”
Kelly said, “Of course it’s true. Jason was a man, he was good looking, he dressed nice. He and Marci were married for nearly three years, and fact was, he was quite a bit more attractive than Marci. How long have you and Mark been married now, Monica?”
“Just because John Goddard kissed you off is no reason to be nasty,” Monica said. “Mark, would you please pass the green beans? Mrs. Abrams does them so nicely, don’t you agree, Mother?”
“Yes, she does,” Kathleen said, ignoring Kelly. “Mary Lisa said she’s staying until Sunday.”
“Well, that’ll be nice,” Monica said. She looked thoughtful. “So maybe we can do something Saturday night.” She didn’t pursue it.
Mary Lisa sat back in her chair. Monica was running for office, Kelly had been dumped by John Goddard-not vice versa-and there had been a murder in Goddard Bay. Her mother was still a champ at slice and dice, and Mark was still-she didn’t know what he was, only that she was now appalled that she’d ever believed herself in love with the man. And here she’d thought she’d be bored.
As Mary Lisa finally climbed into bed that
night, Kelly opened the door and poked her head in. “Mark was giving you the eyeball. It’s like you’re no longer interested in him and he can’t stand it. And you’re a celebrity. Every man wants a girl who’s a celebrity, it’s like they think you put on your panty hose differently or something. I thought Monica was going to leap over the table and stick a knife in your heart.”
“There was no eyeball, Kelly. And I’m such a minor celebrity that nobody thinks about my panty hose.”
Kelly shrugged and looked down at her pretty pink toenails. “What Monica said, it really wasn’t like that. John Goddard really is a bastard.”
“I’ll take your word for it. What you need to think about is what you want to do now. How long are you going to stay here?”
“Oh, I’ll probably move back to my apartment next week sometime. Good night, Mary Lisa. By the way, Mark was definitely giving you the eyeball.” She left, her laughter floating behind her.
FIFTEEN
The ocean breeze was fresh and sharp on Mary Lisa’s face as she ran along the dirt path above the beach beside Cape Peeley Highway. The smell of surf and seaweed was strong in the air, and a light blanket of fog stretched over the water like a gray veil.
What she should do, Mary Lisa had thought grimly before she fell asleep last night, was fly back to L.A. this very afternoon and move in with Detective Vasquez until he found the loon who had clipped her with his LeSabre.
But that was last night, when everything seemed dark and more unpleasant than a dentist visit. But now she was smiling. It was a beautiful day, full of fresh possibilities.
She kept her breathing steady and deep. A light sheen of sweat covered her. She felt good. Running always made her feel good, and she knew she didn’t have to worry about a big car coming out of the mist to run her down.
She’d fixed her father’s Porsche. The plugs, it was always the plugs with her father, not the temperamental electrical system, as if he didn’t know that.
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