The charming streets are crowded with gingerbread cottages and wood-frame boardinghouses, many in the distinctive Chautauqua architecture that stacks three and sometimes four balconies on top of each other.
Paine remembers that he was curious about the balconies when he first arrived here, and somebody told him that in this part of the country, summer is fleeting. Locals want to spend as much time as possible outdoors. Walking through the streets of Chautauqua on summer nights, even terribly humid or rainy nights, Paine soon grew used to the sounds that floated from nearly every porch: creaking gliders, laughter and chatter, radios tuned to ball games or chamber music.
“You know what, Dulcie?” Julia’s voice snaps Paine out of his reverie. “There’s a miniature replica of the Holy Land down by the lake. You’ll be able to feel the hills and walk over them and I’ll describe it to you.”
Palestine Park. Paine recalls it well. Recalls walking down there with Kristin after dark one summer night, when the sun was sinking low in the west and there was a soft breeze off the water and the air was scented with roses. They sat on a bench watching two little girls romp over the low knolls of the reproduced Holy Land, laughing when the children snuck Tootsie Rolls out of their grandmother’s pockets as she dozed on a nearby bench.
Gradually, Paine recalls, the sun set and the little girls and their grandmother left. The full moon hung plump and low in the starry sky over the lake and the crickets began to hum, and Paine put his arms around Kristin, pulled her close, and kissed her for the first time.
“I want to see the Holy Land. Let’s go. Come on, Daddy!”
Paine looks down at Dulcie, eagerly tugging his arm.
He clears his throat, but when he speaks his words are hoarse anyway. “You two can go down there. I’m going to take a walk over to the residence hall where I lived when I was in the conservatory theater here.”
He can feel Julia’s eyes on him, studying him. “Come on, Dulcie. We’ll catch up with your dad in a little while.”
He half expects Dulcie to protest, but she gives a happy little skip, lets go of Paine and clutches Julia’s arm, and chirps, “Okay, let’s go.”
I should have known better than to think she might miss me, Paine thinks, watching the two of them walk away after agreeing to meet him by the amphitheater in half an hour.
Of course Dulcie is thrilled to have Julia all to herself. Julia is all she talked about all morning. The whole drive from Lily Dale to Fredonia, the entire time the two of them were eating breakfast over at the Bob Evans restaurant on Route 60; all the while they were in Wal-Mart looking for a new wrench, and then on the drive back to Lily Dale.
Julia this, and Julia that. More Julia than knock, knock jokes, for which he should have been grateful, but . . .
Paine wonders again if he should be discouraging his daughter and Julia from spending time together, rather than encouraging it. But he can’t seem to help himself. It’s a pleasure—a relief, really—to have some female help with Dulcie now that they’re so far from home and Margaret is away.
That isn’t the only reason you asked Julia to stick around, he reminds himself. But that other reason was ridiculous. Here, in the broad light of day, far from Iris’s creaky old house and the book on spiritualism he read late into the night, Paine can’t quite believe that he almost believed Dulcie was communicating with ghosts—or that he needs Julia around to help her deal with it
No, all Julia can help her with is picking out clothes and braiding her hair, which she did the moment she showed up to meet them after her worship service earlier. She asked Paine if he minded, first.
Of course he didn’t. He had just moments earlier been studying Dulcie’s hair that was still matted—he had forgotten to comb it before it dried after her morning bath—and wondering what he was going to do about it. Having Julia step in with a brush and deftly weaving fingers was a godsend.
Paine sighs and turns away from Bestor Plaza. He doesn’t want to think about Julia now.
He doesn’t want to think about Kristin, either, but she’s here.
I don’t believe in ghosts, Paine thinks. Not in the traditional sense. Not even after what he’s read so far, which was almost—almost—convincing in the wee hours of the night.
But he has to admit, Kristin’s ghost lives on in his mind, especially here, and now. Everywhere he turns, he sees her.
Less than five minutes later, he’s standing in front of the three-story pale yellow wooden dormitory where he lived that summer.
Was it really only a decade ago?
He turns, looking down the leafy street for the private house where Kristin stayed, renting a room from the elderly owners. It, too, looks very much the same, although it has been painted a green instead of the peeling white paint he remembers.
She didn’t want to live in a dorm. Kristin needed her own space. She had been raised as an only child, her half brother never having lived with her, and she couldn’t stand the thought of sharing a closet, a room, a bathroom. Paine, too, is an only child. But he was in Chautauqua courtesy of loans and scholarships and part-time jobs. His parents couldn’t afford the astronomical cost of renting private quarters. Anson could. Only the best for his baby girl. That’s what he liked to say—as Kristin reminded Paine more than once.
Would she have married me if I had money?
This isn’t the first time Paine has wondered about that. And it isn’t the first time he’s concluded that Kristin’s issues with marriage went beyond money. Beyond him, even. She was a free spirit
Even then, he sensed it. She was wild and carefree—ready for anything. She loved to go out dancing at a dive bar down the highway. She liked to drink, and she smoked long menthol cigarettes, and she probably did coke more than the one or two times he witnessed. She slept with him on their first date—though it wasn’t even a date. It was later that first night he kissed her by the water. He told himself then—and countless times after—that she wasn’t a slut. That she slept with him because she was already falling for him. That they were destined to be together.
They used to meet under the sprawling branches of an oak tree midway between the two houses.
Paine looks for it now, as he stands in the street where they once lived, but he can’t find it.
It’s gone.
So something—one thing—has changed here.
Considering how Paine’s life has been altered since he was a carefree young theater student, it seems fitting that the grassy spot where the massive old tree once stood bears no evidence that it was ever there at all.
“Oh, my God. Is that you, Paine?”
Startled to hear his name, he spins around to see a tall man gaping at him from the steps of the residence hall. At first glance, he is unfamiliar, an ungainly stranger whose sharp features are framed by a goatee and a receding hairline.
Then he draws closer and something in the man’s eyes triggers a surge of memories in Paine. In a rush he sees the man’s face as it once was, with a full head of hair and none on the chin.
“Stan!” Paine exclaims, delighted. “You’re still here?”
“Still here,” Stan Mundy, Paine’s former acting instructor, strides forward to shake Paine’s hand. “I’m on the faculty at Juilliard now, but this is still where I spend my summers.”
“That’s wonderful. I can’t believe it’s you!”
“Likewise. Not that you don’t look exactly the same, but . . . what are you doing back here, Paine? When you left here you said you were headed back to California for good. The East Coast didn’t agree with you.”
“Still doesn’t, really,” Paine says, though that isn’t entirely true. He can do without the chilly gray weather, and without the spook-hunters who populate Lily Dale, but he can’t help feeling a little more at home now . . . especially here, in Chautauqua.
“What are you doing these days?”
Paine tells him, briefly, about the television commercial acting class he teaches in L.A., and the minor suc
cess he’s had in commercials and industrials. He leaves out the catering and classifieds jobs. He also leaves out any mention of Dulcie. Or Kristin.
“So you’re just back here visiting, then?” Stan asks.
Paine nods, not about to go into the subject of Iris’s death and the house in Lily Dale, either. “Strolling down memory lane, basically. You know, I’m surprised you remember me.”
“Believe it or not, I never forget a student. It’s not as though I’m a physics professor, droning on in a lecture hall that seats three hundred, Paine. I get to know my students. I pull their rawest emotions from them.”
“That, you do,” Paine says, remembering what it was like to work with Stan. The man is a genius. Flamboyant, over-the-top, a pain in the ass, yes. But a genius, too.
“You were particularly memorable, Paine. Not only did I have a little crush on you—which I am long since over, by the way—but I still commend myself for the performance I got out of you. Man of La Mancha. Your work in that show was phenomenal. Of course, I had no idea at the time that you and Christine were—”
“It was Kristin,” Paine cuts in, feeling as though a fist has clamped around his heart at Stan’s mention of her name. Even the wrong name. “Not Christine.”
“Ah, Kristin. That’s right. She was a beautiful girl. A decent actress, too, although in my opinion she wouldn’t have gotten in here if her father hadn’t pulled strings with the admissions office. I have to admit, now that you and I are long past our instructor-student relationship, that I was somewhat jealous of her back then, once I realized—I mean, I wasn’t entirely convinced you were straight until I saw the two of you together.”
Paine offers a tight smile. In his line of work, he’s accustomed to homosexual men assuming he’s one of them—and to fending off advances. And of course he knew back then that Stan was interested in him. Kristin used to tease him about it.
“I was sad to hear about her death a few summers back,” Stan goes on. “It was in all the local papers. You did know about that, didn’t you?” he adds as an afterthought. “She drowned.”
Paine manages a nod and a single word. “Yes.”
The newspapers never mentioned him. Nor did her obituary in the Evening Observer list his name. Only Dulcie’s, Iris’s, and Edward’s. After all, Paine wasn’t married to her. Technically, he isn’t Kristin’s survivor. Technically, the half brother she never saw is.
“It was a tragic accident,” Stan says. “She apparently fell off a boat into Lake Erie.”
No. It was Cassadaga Lake. But Paine doesn’t bother to correct Stan. He tries to swallow the bitterness; tries not to think about what happened even as he realizes the name of the lake isn’t the only detail that escaped Stan when he read the printed accounts of Kristin’s death. Apparently, the man never noticed that her daughter’s last name is the same as Paine’s, and is unaware that Paine and Kristin continued their relationship after leaving Chautauqua.
Paine isn’t about to tell him.
“Listen—how long are you staying in the area, Paine?” Stan asks, discarding the subject of Kristin’s tragic death as casually as someone shedding one shirt and trying on another.
“I’m not sure, Stan.”
“Because I’d love it if you’d sit in on a group session tomorrow or Tuesday. You might find it interesting. And one of our faculty members has been delayed in Europe on a movie set, so we’re a bit short-handed.”
“You want me to help you teach?”
“Not per se. But you’re welcome to poke your head in if you like.”
“That might be fun,” Paine says slowly. It would get him away from Lily Dale for a few hours. Maybe Julia will stay with Dulcie.
“Terrific.” Stan tells him when and where to find the session, then heads off down the street, sashaying a bit.
Paine watches him absently.
Once again, he’s seeing Kristin.
Hearing Stan’s words.
You did know that she drowned, didn’t you?
It was a tragic accident.
Was it?
He and Julia haven’t discussed the topic since Friday night.
But she, like Paine, thinks there might have been more to Kristin’s death.
Oh, Christ. Maybe I should just turn the damned house over to Rupert Biddle, get the hell out of here tomorrow with Dulcie, and forget all about it.
But if he does that, will it really be over? Will he be able to sever all ties with Lily Dale—with Kristin’s death? Will he ever be able to forget? To stop wondering?
He knows the answer.
So.
Is that the real reason he turned down Rupert Biddle’s offer?
Not just because the old man rubbed him the wrong way, or reminds him of his domineering father . . .
But because Iris’s house is Paine’s last remaining tangible tie to Kristin. His last chance to find out what really happened to her.
And he’s not going to leave Lily Dale until he knows the truth.
PILAR PRESSES THE brake, drawing to a stop in front of the listing roadside mailbox that bears the name REYNOLDS.
Sinclairville is small enough that there are only two listings under that fairly common name in the phone book, both with full first names.
This is it, Pilar thinks, looking ahead down a long, open gravel lane toward the beige farmhouse with brown shutters. Even from here, across a broad expanse of field, she can see that the place sorely needs a paint job, and the straggly flower beds beneath the porch could stand to be weeded. The air of shabby desolation seems suited to the gray landscape.
Why am I doing this?
This isn’t the first time since she left home that the thought has crossed Pilar’s mind. Each time, she has answered it with less conviction.
She’s here because of Nan. She owes it to her friend to track down her daughter and make sure they are able to see each other one last time, before it’s too late. Rupert doesn’t realize how little time Nan has left. But he—and Katherine, too—will be grateful to Pilar later.
What if Lincoln Reynolds has no idea how to reach Katherine?
That’s fairly likely, Pilar supposes: All she knows is that Rupert sent his daughter away to boarding school to get her away from this man. But Katherine has been back to the area since. Surely she looked up her first love, now that so many years have passed. Myra said Lincoln married someone else.
Yet the place doesn’t seem to have a woman’s touch about it, Pilar notices as she drives down the lane toward the house. There are window boxes beneath the windows, but they’re bare of flowers. Despite the lack of a breeze, the clothesline in the side yard is strung with a man’s white sleeveless undershirts and boxers and socks, and a few large pairs of jeans and denim work shirts.
Pilar pulls to a stop behind a dusty blue pickup truck. It occurs to her that she should probably have phoned first—or instead. But her instinct, upon finding Lincoln Reynolds listed in the white pages, was to see him face-to-face. Maybe in part it’s her own curiosity. She wants to see the man Rupert Biddle despised so much that he sent his only child to live somewhere else just to keep her away from him.
“Can I help you with something?”
Pilar looks up with a start. A large man is standing beside her open window, clutching an empty plastic laundry basket. He’s well over six feet tall and barrel-chested, with a stomach that protrudes beneath a plain gray T-shirt and sticks out above the waistband of his worn Levi’s.
She finds her voice. “Are you Lincoln Reynolds?”
“That’s me.”
He must have once been handsome, she thinks, studying his weathered, sunburnt face. He has nice brown eyes and thick gray hair with the kind of sideburns that keep coming in and out of fashion. Pilar suspects his have been there since his youth, rather than a conscious effort to be hip. Everything about the man says hick farmer.
Is that why Rupert didn’t like him?
“My name is Pilar Velazquez. I live over in Lily Dale.�
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“Lily Dale?”
She watches him carefully, expecting to see recognition, but not the stark emotion that flits into his eyes. Is he thinking of Katherine?
She removes the keys from the ignition and makes a move to open her door. He does it for her, setting the plastic laundry basket on the ground and muttering something.
“Pardon?” Pilar says, getting out of the car.
“Said I might as well leave the laundry awhile longer. It’s been there two days already. Got soaked yesterday morning and I had to let it dry all over again.”
She smiles faintly. “It’s supposed to rain tonight, too. And it’s not going to stop until later in the day tomorrow. Don’t leave it too long.”
He shrugs. “It’ll dry again.”
Curious about his marital status, she looks down at his hand. There’s no wedding band on his ring finger, but a circular pale mark on his tanned knuckle shows that there was one there recently.
He catches her looking. “My wife died about a year ago,” he says simply. “I just took off the ring a few weeks back. Thought it was time.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t ever like wearing it anyway. But she thought I should. So I did.”
Pilar nods. She opens her mouth to tell him what she’s doing here, but he beats her to it, posing that very question in his straightforward way.
“I wondered if you could spare a few minutes to talk to me, Mr. Reynolds. I thought you might have some information that I need.”
“If it’s about farming, I can probably help you. Otherwise, you’ve probably come to the wrong place. I don’t know much about anything else.”
She smiles. He’s likeably charming. Again, she wonders why Rupert loathed him so much. Maybe there’s more to Lincoln Reynolds than meets the eye—or maybe he was a different person way back when he was dating the Biddles’ daughter.
“I actually wanted to ask you about someone you used to know in Lily Dale, Mr. Reynolds,” Pilar says.
In the Blink of an Eye Page 17
