by Gail Bowen
“Point taken,” Blake said finally. He turned to Delia. “Hey, partner, look alive.”
With surprising speed, Zack wheeled himself over the bumpy grass to join them, and when he motioned to Noah and me to come onto the field, we didn’t hesitate. The girls saw us tossing the disc around and came running. There was laughter on the field that night; there was also a sense of communion. We played until the darkness gathered and we were no longer able to keep track of the disc that was our prize. When Blake and I collided and hit the grass, Zack announced the inevitable.
“Game called,” he said. “Before there’s a lawsuit.”
Laughing and grousing, we headed for the parking lot. Delia touched my arm in a sisterly gesture. “About those slacks of yours,” she said, “they’re raw silk, aren’t they?”
“I got them on sale at the end of last summer,” I said. “Even so, the only way I could justify buying them was promising myself I’d wear them for the next ten years.”
“Maybe you could turn them into cut-offs,” Delia said.
“Or a thong,” I said. “I’d better make tracks. Zack and Taylor are waiting in the car.”
“Tonight was fun, wasn’t it?” Delia said.
“Yes,” I said. “It was.”
“We need more fun,” Delia said, and her voice broke in one of those strange little cadences that made it impossible to tell if she was laughing or crying.
Zack kept the convertible’s top down on the drive home, and Taylor provided us with spirited observations on the stars and on the signs sporting the whimsical names cottagers had given their summer homes. Suddenly, she fell silent. I turned around to check.
“Is she all right?” Zack asked.
“She’s fine,” I said. “In fact, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear her snoring. Taylor is one of the few human beings I know who can move from full throttle to deep sleep in mid-sentence.”
“Lucky Taylor,” Zack said.
Our cottage was dark when we pulled up. “Damn,” I said. “I forgot to leave on a light.”
“I hate coming home to a dark house,” Zack said. “I’ll go in with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know,” he said, turning and pulling his folded wheelchair from the back seat. In two minutes the wheelchair was ready for action and Zack was in it. “Want to give me the keys?” he said.
I fished around in my bag for the keys and handed them to him. Then I reached into the back of the car and wakened Taylor.
“We’re home,” I said. “But you’re too big for me to carry.”
“Okay,” she mumbled.
Still more than half asleep, Taylor leaned against me and we walked into the house. I took her down to her room, helped her on with her pyjamas, and smoothed the sheets after she slipped into bed.
“Sleep tight,” I said.
Taylor opened her eyes. “Hey, I forgot to tell you. Gracie’s mum’s coming home.”
“Is Gracie happy?”
“I don’t know. She just said her mother hasn’t anywhere else to go.”
“That’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”
“It’s really sad,” Taylor said, then she rolled over and burrowed deep into her covers.
Zack was by the sideboard in the living room, holding one of the action figures from Kevin’s collection. I went to him and scrutinized the figure in his hands. “Darth Vader,” I said. “I’m going to write a learned paper on how the action figures people choose reveal their inner lives.”
“Darth Vader was the scourge of the Jedi and the master of the dark side of the force,” Zack said. “Any new insights there about me?”
“No,” I said. “That’s pretty much my take on you.”
“So who’s your choice?” Zack asked.
“Wonder Woman,” I said. “I love those bracelets, and it would be handy to have a lariat that compelled complete honesty and obedience from anyone I chose to snare.”
Zack put Darth Vader back in place. “Is it okay if I stay for a while?”
“Of course,” I said. “Would you like a drink?”
“Actually, I was thinking it might be nice to sit on that couch over there and neck.”
“I’m sweaty,” I said.
“So am I,” Zack said. “We’ll cancel each other out.”
I went over to the couch. Zack slid off his chair into the place beside me and we started to make the kinds of moves I hadn’t made since I was a teenager. They were still potent. Within minutes, it was pretty clear we were both aroused.
“If the kids come in and catch us like this, I’m going to lose my moral edge,” I said.
“Can’t have that,” Zack said. He held me close, caressing my breasts. “Except for the obvious, I don’t know where this is going, Joanne.”
“Neither do I,” I said. “But for tonight, I think the obvious will be enough.”
“You’ll come by my house after the kids get home?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll come by.”
After Zack left, I sprayed my ruined slacks with Spot Shot and stepped into the shower. My mind was racing. The number of sexual partners I had had during my life could be counted on three fingers: my husband, Ian; a man named Keith Harris, who had always been more friend than lover and who was still a friend; and Alex Kequahtooway. I had never been casual about sex, and yet here I was, getting ready to towel off, dress, and walk down the road to spend the night with a man I’d known for less than two weeks. Seemingly, at the age of fifty-five, I was becoming a risk-taker.
After I’d stepped out of the shower, I looked at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Thirty-three years ago, when I was certain Ian and I would become lovers, I had stood on a chair in my room in the dorm and examined my body in the mirror above my bureau. The sun was pouring through the window and my flesh glowed firm and ripe as a pear. As I looked at my body that September afternoon, I had known that Ian was a lucky man. Zack Shreve would be less lucky. Still, none of us is perfect, and he had asked.
When I heard the front door open, I felt a moment of panic. It wouldn’t be easy explaining to my son what I was about to do. As it turned out, the gods were smiling. Leah was alone in the kitchen.
“Where’s our boy?” I said.
“Probably already asleep,” she said. “There’s a truckload of meat coming in early tomorrow morning.” She sniffed the air. “You’re wearing your best perfume and mascara and your second-best summer outfit. Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Actually, I have to ask a favour,” I said. “I wonder if you’d mind keeping an ear open for Taylor. I have to go out for a while.”
“Out as in out on a date?”
“I’m going over to Zack Shreve’s.”
The smallest of frowns crinkled her brow. “Jo, are you sure about this?”
“No,” I said, “I’m not sure at all, but I’m going anyway.”
Leah dimpled. “Well, good for you. My Aunt Slava always says that summer is for bad boys.”
The front door to Zack’s house was open a crack. I stepped inside.
“I’m here,” I said.
Zack came in from the living room. He was wearing a white terry-towel robe. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
“You left the door open, and you’re undressed.”
“I’m an optimistic guy.” He extended his hand. “Ready?”
The colours in Zack’s bedroom were the same as those in the rest of the house – rust, metallic grey, and white – and the furniture was just as sleek, but this room was personal, with books, papers, and photographs. The bed was large enough to get lost in. On one of the bedside tables there was a bowl of apples, on the other, a white orchid in a graceful crystal vase.
“We can share the apples,” Zack said. “But the orchid’s for you.”
“Where did you get an orchid at eleven at night?”
“I snipped it from the plant in the kitchen. Lights on or off?”
“Off,” I said. “And thanks for the flower.”
From the outset, we were surprisingly easy with one another. “This is going to involve a few adjustments,” he said. “Tell me how you feel about what I’m doing.” He slid his hand between my legs.
“I like that,” I said. “So what do I do?”
He took my hand and guided it to his nipple. “Start here.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
And so we discovered one another’s bodies. I had never been with anyone who understood a woman’s sexuality the way Zack did. What we did was different from what I was used to, but it was sublime. We fell asleep in one another’s arms, and I didn’t wake until the first light of morning. I slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom, washed my face and cursed the fact that I’d forgotten my toothbrush.
Zack was awake when I came back. “Were you just going to disappear without saying goodbye?”
“I was going to let you sleep,” I said.
“I don’t want to sleep,” he said. “Come here.”
I sat on the bed beside him, and he drew me to him. When he started to kiss me, I turned my head. “I didn’t bring my toothbrush.”
“Use mine.”
“I couldn’t do that.”
Zack looked amused. “We just spent several hours exchanging bodily fluids,” he said.
“That was different.”
“You’re a woman of contradictions, Ms. Kilbourn, but I’ll learn to live with them.” He stroked my head. “So what are you going to do today?”
“I’ll probably try to figure out what happened here tonight.”
“Regrets?”
“None. At this moment, I’m very happy.”
“Me too.”
“And what are you going to do today?”
“I have to be in court by nine o’clock.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. I’m a lawyer. Appearing in court is part of the gig.”
“Are you prepared?”
“Always.” Zack pushed himself up so he was sitting. “Anything you want me to bring you from town?”
I kissed his forehead. “A toothbrush,” I said.
CHAPTER
11
When I awoke for the second time that morning, my son was peering anxiously at me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “What time is it?”
“Seven o’clock,” Angus said. “You slept in.”
“But I woke up, so you can stop worrying.”
Angus was not reassured. “You always get up at five-thirty. Taylor said you were throwing the disc around last night. I thought you might have pulled something.”
I sat up and stretched. “Everything’s functioning,” I said.
But my son’s attention had wandered. Face down on the bed beside me was Harriet Hynd’s copy of To the Lighthouse. The light bulb over Angus’s head flashed on. “You were reading,” he announced triumphantly. “You stayed up late reading. That’s why you slept in.” Once again the universe was unfolding as it should. He gave my leg a patronizing pat. “Gotta get you a real life, Mum,” he said.
“I’ll work on it,” I said.
After Angus left, I showered, dressed, and realizing I couldn’t live on the afterglow of passion alone, headed for the kitchen. Taylor was at the breakfast table, drizzling honey on her toast. Her hair was smoothed into a smart French braid.
I touched her hair. “When did you learn to do this by yourself?”
“Rose taught me last week. She says the fewer things you have to rely on other people to do for you, the better off you are.”
“She’s right about that.” I peeled an orange and sat down opposite my daughter. “So what’s on the agenda today?”
“This morning we’re hauling rocks,” she said. “We’re going to build the Inukshuk out by the gazebo.”
“That’s quite a distance,” I said. “Want me to put the rocks in the trunk of the Volvo and drive them out there for you?”
“No, that’s okay. We’ll use the wheelbarrow. We kind of want to do this ourselves.” As she always did, Taylor cut her toast into the smallest of triangles. “I’m supposed to ask you if it’s okay if I go to Standing Buffalo later on. Rose wants to take her sister some lunch.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “How’s Betty doing?”
“She’s bored. I’d be bored if I had to sit around for six weeks with my leg in a cast.”
“Maybe I’ll come with you and visit.”
“That’d be good,” Taylor said. “But if Gracie’s mum comes back, we have to stay here so she won’t think we’re mad.”
“Why would she think you were mad?”
Taylor wolfed a dainty triangle. “I don’t know,” she said. “Gracie knows, but she won’t talk about it.”
I poured cereal into my bowl and went to the fridge to get the milk. The carton was suspiciously light. I opened it and held it over my bowl. Three drops of milk dribbled out.
Taylor and I exchanged glances. “Angus!” we said in unison.
I selected a banana. “A fruitarian’s breakfast for me,” I said. “But I might as well walk down to the Point Store and get a litre of milk. Want to come?”
Taylor shook her head. “I’m already late. We want to get the Inukshuk finished today.”
“Okay,” I said. “Don’t forget to check in.”
I picked up my purse and started for the door, but the mention of Lily Falconer had taken the bounce out of my step. I had no proof that Lily and Alex had been together during the days when they had both been AWOL, but logic suggested it was a strong possibility. If Lily was coming back, it was possible that Alex was coming back too. Our relationship was over, but the prospect of Alex losing the career he’d spent half his life building sickened me. When I picked up the phone and dialled Robert Hallam’s number I was searching for reassurance that somehow the confusion and questions Alex had left behind had been cleared away.
Robert Hallam offered no comfort. He was pleasant but guarded when he heard my voice. We inquired after one another’s families and then I asked if he’d had news of Alex.
I could feel the ice. “I can’t talk about Inspector Kequahtooway, Joanne. It’s an internal matter now.”
“So Alex is being investigated.”
Robert was edgy. “Joanne…”
“I know,” I said. “It’s an internal matter.”
He sighed. “Rosalie and I still consider you a friend. I just can’t discuss this.”
“I understand,” I said. “But Robert, is Alex all right?”
There was a silence. “I can’t discuss it. Goodbye, Joanne.” He cleared his throat. “Our door is always open to you.”
As I walked to the Point Store, the realization hit me that, in the vernacular of another era, there was more than one way to skin a cat. Robert Hallam wasn’t the only source of information available to me. I passed the store and went straight to Coffee Row. Three of the gents were already holding court and Endzone, flopped on the rug at her master’s feet, was dreaming her old-dog dreams. The gentlemen raised their caps to me, but instead of continuing to my place at the next table, I joined them. The shock was seismic.
Morris took command. “You’ve sat in the wrong place,” he said, turning up the volume the way he would for someone who didn’t understand the language. He pointed to the picnic table under the tree. “That’s your place over there.”
“I want to sit with you today,” I said.
Aubrey, the gnome with the dental-drill whine, leaped to his feet. “This is the men’s table. We smoke. We use strong language. We talk about things you’d have no interest in.”
Endzone, ripped from sleep by the ruckus, ambled over, sniffed me curiously, and fixed me with a baleful eye.
“It’s all right,” I said, stroking her jowls, “I’m just visiting.” Mollified, she rested her chin on my knee and awaited developments.
I turned my atten
tion to the men.
“I need some information,” I said. “And I think you can help me. Once when I was having coffee here, I overheard you talking about Lily Falconer.”
Aubrey sat back down and the trio exchanged glances.
“I’m not asking you to gossip,” I said. “I just want you to tell me about Lily Falconer. That day you mentioned something about a tragedy involving her mother.”
“Goddamn that daughter of mine,” Morris thundered. “You could have read everything you needed to know if that girl had left my archives alone, but oh no, she thought they were a fire hazard. She gave me a choice – say goodbye to my Player’s Plains or say goodbye to my archives. What the hell kind of choice is that for a daughter to give her father?”
Lear couldn’t have been more cogent. It was a freighted question, and I waited for Morris to move on. It didn’t take him long.
Tapping his temple with a forefinger brown as a cured tobacco leaf, Morris grew discursive. “My archives may be gone, but I still have my mind. I can tell you what happened, in my own words. It’ll be – what do they call it, Stan?”
“Oral history,” Stan said.
“Which is good,” Morris said. “Except you lack the pictures.”
“She can still see the damn pictures,” Stan Gardiner said. “The newspaper has its own archives, Morris, and they don’t use theirs to paper-train puppies. Mrs. Kilbourn can walk into the offices of the Valley Gazette and ask them to let her look at everything they’ve got on Gloria Ryder.”
“Gloria Ryder,” I repeated. “That was Lily’s mother’s name?”
“Yes,” Stan said. “The date you’ll be wanting is January 1968, and after you’ve gone through the paper’s archives, come talk to me. It’s only right that you get the full story.”
In the months after I’d decided to rent the cottage at Lawyers’ Bay, I subscribed to the Valley Gazette. It was a weekly that was clear in its purpose: to record the births, marriages, deaths, celebrations, follies, and accomplishments of its citizens and to keep a wary eye on governments, developers, and special-interest groups that might threaten the fine lives of the people of Fort Qu’Appelle and district.
