by Pam Richter
Her anger kept the tears from falling. She had truly believed he cared for her.
CHAPTER 22
When Julia arrived at Logan International Airport in Boston, the terminal was packed with travelers, but Charlotte, with her bluish-white hair piled high on her head was immediately visible. The tallest woman at the arrival gate, Charlotte sailed through crowds that parted for her like the Red Sea, or the aristocratic monarch they recognized her to be. She stood in front of Julia, regarding her with alarmed affection.
"What in the world happened to you, Julia?" Charlotte asked. She had a distant way of speaking, as though Julia's face was a normal, everyday experience that she could handle with total equanimity, but Julia knew her better. Charlotte was aghast by her appearance.
"I'm fine, Grandmother," Julia said, trying to smile.
"I can see you're fine. You appear to have been hit on the face."
"I just had a silly accident."
"You are going to tell me the truth, young lady," Charlotte said sternly, oblivious to the crowds flowing around them.
Julia suddenly smiled and threw her arms around Charlotte. Her grandmother's predictability was so welcome and reassuring. "Okay. I'll tell you the truth. But we have to go to your house and have some tea. It's not a nice story."
Sometime later, in Charlotte's beautiful brick Georgian mansion on Beacon Hill, after they got comfortable in the parlor and had tea, Julia gently and with as much compassion as she could, told Charlotte the real reasons behind Brian's death.
Charlotte sat in still reflective silence for a while, digesting the fact that her beloved grandson had been murdered. "I still don't understand everything. But I think it will be a fine thing for you to write that book, as a memorial to Brian."
Julia could see that her grandmother was having a hard time with the fact that Brian had been killed with premeditation. First, the terrible beating. And then, when that had not worked, the sabotage of vital life support machines in a prestigious hospital. The whole murder sequence was hard to imagine, even within the fantasy of a movie or book.
Julia felt sad that she had left this aging and vulnerable woman for so long, but it had been necessary for both of them to know the truth. "That's exactly what I want. A memorial to a life cut short by greed and corruption."
Julia couldn't keep the anger out of her voice. After the betrayal by Robin, the prospect of hard work on the book seemed to be the only thing keeping her together.
"Tell me about the man who helped you. Robin, wasn't it?" Charlotte asked. "It sounds like his efforts on your behalf were quite heroic."
Julia knew she would have to be very clever to keep anything from Charlotte. "Yes. I met him the first time I went to Los Angeles. He's a mechanic. Robin helped me when my transmission was wrecked, and he seemed like a nice guy. I hired him to do investigative work because I thought he needed the money."
"A mechanic. How interesting." Charlotte's voice was totally flat. A snob to her very toes, Charlotte conveniently forgot the Irish and Italian peasant blood flowing in her own veins, which had been passed to her through ancestors from the hearty immigrant population which had invaded Boston in the early part of the century. Charlotte firmly believed herself a genuine Yankee descendent of the Puritan founders of the city of Boston. She ruled Boston society with an iron glove.
"The problem is," Julia said, "I think Robin might want to continue a relationship that never really began. So if he calls, would you please put him off, in the nicest possible way?"
"Of course, my dear. You know, Alexander has called several times, asking about you."
Julia sighed with relief. But she didn't want to see Alexander. She wanted peace and quiet and work.
As Julia got up to say good-by, she promised Charlotte that she would call Alexander. Sometime in the future, she thought. Maybe a hundred years or so.
When Julia finally arrived home, her beautiful apartment near Luisburg Square on the slopes of Beacon Hill seemed cold, barren and deadly quiet. She wandered around, undecided about what to do for a while, sifting through her mail. There were unpaid bills and condolence letters about Brian. As she made an inventory of her almost empty refrigerator Julia checked her watch. It was eight o'clock Boston time, so it would be around five in California. She dialed the Quijada residence. She would have to hang up if he answered himself, but Julia thought that Rosa would not have retired to her room upstairs yet.
"Hello?" The soft Mexican accent was unmistakable.
"Hi, Rosa. It's Julia."
"Ah, Julia. I hear Senor Quijada is not at all happy with you." There was a long pause. "It is rumors, of course. Don't feel bad. I work in the kitchen and know nothing."
"Is Mr. Quijada there?" Julia asked.
"No. He is away now."
"I'm glad because I really wanted to speak to you. There was a misunderstanding. I'm going to send him back all the money that he paid for the autobiography. I already informed my bank. And I was wondering if you could send the book to me. Please tell Mr. Quijada about this call, and tell him to call my bank. It's the Bank of America branch on Sunset Boulevard that I was using when I was in Los Angeles. They are authorized to tell him a check for the writing services that he paid to Brian and to me is being sent special delivery. It will arrive tomorrow morning. In return, I want to get the manuscript back."
"I don't know. Senor is very angry."
"I know he is. That's why I left. If you would be good enough to go to his study and wrap up the book, I would be very grateful."
"I will do this thing. Right now. We all miss you here, Julia."
"Thank you, Rosa. I'll be sending your pictures to you. I got them developed and you look just beautiful. You'll see. I'm also sending pictures of your husband, Manny." Julia spent some time talking to Rosa and gave her the address to send the book.
Julia had the book on computer disc, but she didn't want Quijada to use any part of the manuscript. There was a good possibility that he never would, if the District Attorney's office in Los Angeles was successful in utilizing the information she had taken from his safe. If not, she would probably be under an indictment herself, for slander, because of the things she would be revealing in the book.
She wanted revenge for her brother's death, and she promised herself she would have vengeance when the truth was exposed. She couldn't hurt Quijada physically, but in this case the pen really would be mightier than the sword. If she didn't land in jail first. Quijada might still accuse her of theft.
The next morning, Julia was in the shower when she heard her telephone ringing. "Damn, happens every time," she muttered. She jumped out of the shower, grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around her.
Just as she was nearing the phone she heard the answering machine click on with her short message, "Julia here. Leave a message."
"Julia?"
She stopped dead, panting, eyes wide. It was as though an electrical current passed through her entire body. The voice she vowed she would never listen to again. Her hand reached slowly, almost as if it was under someone else's control, to pick up the receiver. Then she stopped and stumbled back. She didn't know why she was surprised. Her number was listed in the phone book.
"I guess you're not home. I don't understand why you left suddenly without speaking to me. It was such a shock, finding you gone when Tony and I got back to the cabin. I was going to speak to you about going back to Boston, because I was afraid you wouldn't be safe here in California. And I knew you didn't want to go. So I don't understand what compelled you to leave. I'll try you again later. I really miss you."
Julia resolutely went back to the bathroom and got into the shower. She loved showers and it felt wonderful. The warm water on her face was from the spray, she told herself. He didn't deserve her tears.
As Julia lathered vigorously, she found it hard to believe how sincere Robin had sounded, almost as if he really did miss her, when she knew he was probably glad to get rid of the bothersome problem her p
resence would have produced. Not even mentioning cramping his spectacular style with the evidently never ending multitude of women in his life.
Later in the day there was another message: "Julia. You didn't return my call and I don't know where you are. I'll keep calling here, every night at eight o'clock, your time. Please call me. I love you."
Julia gritted her teeth. Now she couldn't answer her own phone in fear that she might pick up on Robin. But she was hovering over the phone the next night at 8 p.m.
"Still missing you, Julia. I know you're in Boston. I'll keep calling, every night. I have some good news. There was a big drug bust on the Arizona/Mexico border. You may have read about it in the newspaper. The information you gave to the D.A.'s office is totally accurate. We're trying to move on it fast. But I miss you very much."
After that message she began getting the Los Angeles Times delivered to her door every morning so that she could check up on the progress of the investigation. And every night she would sit in the living room and listen to Robin speak to her at exactly eight o'clock. She told herself that she would never pick up the phone, but she always found herself standing right over it, longing to go on with the silly charade. She desperately wanted to pretend that he really was a mechanic who loved her. She longed to pick up the phone. She even put her hand on the receiver a few times, fantasizing that the warmth she heard in his voice could be transferred through the miles of phone lines to the hard polymer plastic of her phone. It was becoming more and more tantalizing and she was afraid that one night, all alone, she would just grab the damn thing up and talk to him.
Julia was relieved when her manuscript arrived in the mail and breathed a deep sigh of relief. This was the substance of her book. The rest would be filled in as events unfolded in California. She consoled herself with the thought that Robin was always telling her things that she could use in the book, things that only a person in on the inner workings of the District Attorney's office would know. It was her excuse for listening to Robin's one sided conversations every night.
She became glad that she didn't answer her phone when the really disturbing phone calls started a couple of days later. Threatening calls. Telling Julia abruptly that she would die.
The harassing phone calls would come about twice a day and sometimes in the middle of the night. She never answered. It seemed like there was more than one person making the scary announcements of doom. There were at least two separate, distinct voices, which made Julia even more afraid. It was a concerted effort to terrorize her. Quijada was behind the calls, in a pathetically juvenile effort to get back at her. There were references to the effect that what had happened to her brother was nothing compared to the pain she would suffer.
Julia was in a quandary about what to do about the calls. Creepy as they were, she kept the recordings in case she would have to go to the police, but she was reluctant to do so. They would tell her to change her number and she realized she needed the things Robin told her for her book. She could not give this information away, even to the police in Boston. She would get Robin in trouble for distributing privileged information.
From what Julia surmised from the newspapers, Quijada was in terrible trouble. The stories she read were hinting that he would soon be indited for drug smuggling.
Julia was working so hard she almost never left her apartment. The whole format of the manuscript had to be changed and she revised and wrote for hours each day. She noticed she seemed to be unusually sleepy and took many midday naps. Or maybe it was just the lonesomeness. She hadn't contacted many of her girlfriends. It was still too painful to talk about her brother in the past tense. And she couldn't tell them the truth; that Brian was murdered by a famous movie mogul because he found out that the man was a drug dealer, murderer and a pedophile. They would think she had gone crazy in her grief.
She thought it would be lovely to have a pet. Of course that made her think of Scooter. She wanted a dog just like Robin's, a little fur-ball who would be thrilled to see her when she got home at night.
After a couple of weeks, Julia vowed to change her telephone number because the harassing phone calls were coming more and more frequently, often waking her from a sound sleep several times a night. But as the days went by she would seem to forget to call the phone company. Each day she promised herself she would be gone when Robin called. Every night, at eight o'clock, she was hovering over the phone.
Julia went out with Alexander, one night, just to get away from the lonesome apartment filled only by the quiet sounds of her computer clicking during the day and, once a night, the sound of Robin's voice.
It started out wonderfully. Seeing him again reminded her that he was still a good friend. She thought that she would be off the entire male gender for a long time after what Robin had done, but she had known Alexander for years and it was a welcome relief to be out on the streets of Boston again.
They went to an early dinner and then to a Shakespearian play near the Boston University campus. She decided she should definitely get out more often. The play was entertaining and sometimes whole minutes went by when she didn't think about Robin.
During the intermission Julia thought that Robin must have grown tired of calling her. He had called, each night, for over a month. He would undoubtedly give up. Just to make sure, Julia decided to call her answering machine and check her phone messages.
She found a telephone in the crowded lobby near the Women's Room and stood in line for a while.
"Julia. It's me again. I don't know what to do. I want to talk to you in person and I can't leave California right now. I finally talked to the two policemen, John Franks and Bud Hathaway. I think I know what happened. Why you left. I just want to say one thing. When Tony, Jay and I made the bet, I didn't know you. It was a silly, macho, chauvinist thing to do. And I didn't agree with their time limits or anything. We were all drunk and those added items were not my idea. Then, because of the strange circumstances, with you working for Quijada and me trying to investigate him, we got to know each other very well. Very fast. Sometimes that can lead to erroneous feelings, when something happens quickly. We were the lucky ones. It happened for both of us. Let's not throw something so wonderful away."
When Julia got back inside the darkened theater, the play had already begun again and she had to squeeze in front of people to get back to her seat. Alexander took her hand and held it tightly. "I was worried."
She could feel him gazing at her profile.
"Have you been crying?" Alexander whispered.
Julia shook her head, eyes riveted on the stage where men in brightly clad medieval clothing were engaged in a violent sword fight.
When Alexander kissed her good-nite Julia decided she might truly be ruined forever. Not only was it distasteful, she was totally repulsed. His lips felt like a slab from a cold, clammy fish. She wanted to struggle out of the arms that enclosed her. And this was a man she liked. He was a nice guy. She had to fight within herself to keep her arms from pushing him away.
Her irrational reaction of distaste made her angry. Robin had really done a number on her and she was furious that her mind was playing tricks like this, making a normal parting gesture between a man and a woman seem unwholesome and wrong, when it was perfectly fine for her to kiss someone at the end of a very pleasant evening.
Julia asked Alexander to come inside. He followed her obediently into the apartment, probably believing he was finally going to get lucky, but she had to tell him to stop seeing her. It wasn't fair to keep stringing him along. Alexander wanted a home with a wife and children. She could never give him those things.
As she made coffee in the kitchen she thought that she was cutting a tie with a good friend because it was the kindest thing to do under the circumstances. Something that Robin would never do. He would try to string her along with the phone calls each night.
Julia carried a tray with coffee and desert cookies into the living room and set it down on the low cocktail table, still thinking abo
ut Robin. She had to believe the worst of him. It was her right. He had played her for a fool. She was furious with herself that she had fallen for him so hard, as though she didn't have control of her own emotions. Even with another man in her apartment she couldn't stop thinking about Robin. He had become a terrible obsession; a curse with tentacles dug deeply into her heart.
"You're very beautiful tonight, Julia," Alexander said as she sat down and poured him a cup of coffee.
"Even with the black eye?" Julia asked, glancing up and smiling at him. Actually, it was hardly noticeable any more.
"Tragedy must become you," Alexander said, as he sipped the coffee. "You've changed. It's a little puzzling."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Julia said. "Besides Brian's death, something else happened in California. I'm going to be perfectly honest with you because you're such a good friend."
"I had hoped for more," Alexander murmured.
"I know. That's why I have to say this. I haven't even told Charlotte. You see, I wasn't in California long, but I met someone and fell in love."
Alexander looked startled. "Really?"
"Yes. At one time I hoped it would happen with you, because you're a very special man. And I truly wish the best for you. I want to remain your friend, of course."
"This man in California. Would you tell me about him?"
Julia smiled. "I really can't." She remembered when she was in bed with Robin for the two minute hug. They had joked about setting up Alexander with Robin's former girlfriend, Sarah. It seemed like a million years ago. A time when she was living in a wonderful dream.
"Well, he is going to marry you." Alexander didn't even make it a question.
"I don't know about the future," Julia said vaguely. She didn't want to tell Alexander the short love affair was over. It would give him the idea that there was a possibility of resurrecting their relationship.
"I thought you hated Los Angeles."
"I did," Julia answered, realizing that her feelings for the place had changed. "Los Angeles has undesirable parts, plus smog and earthquakes, but there are wonderful things about the place. You get used to sunny skies. And the beaches are glorious. Some parts of Los Angeles are very beautiful."
