LimeLight

by Melody Carlson

  Then I see a dark green van pulling up with the words McLachlan Manor on the side. Violet gets out, then Roberto helps Caroline out. He peers at the house as if he’d like to come in and see today’s carnival sideshow, but he just gets back into the van. He doesn’t drive away. They probably asked him to wait.

  My palms feel sweaty as I slowly walk to the front door. I have entertained movie stars, producers, directors, dignitaries… all with less stress than I’m feeling right now. I take in a deep breath, then slowly release it. Then, pasting what I hope is a congenial smile onto my face, I open the door and greet them.

  “Thank you for coming,” I say in my most gracious voice.

  They both look at me curiously as they say a cautious, “Hello,” and step inside. It feels as if they expect my head to begin spinning or some other such nonsense.

  “May I take your coats?” I ask, still smiling.

  “Thanks.” Caroline slips off her parka and hands it to me.

  “I’ll keep mine on,” says Violet.

  Caroline is examining the photo montage. “Is that Shelley Winters?”

  “Yes. And that’s Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford, Lana Turner…” And I go through the list of celebrities.

  “You were really friends with all those people?” Caroline just shakes her head. “I wish I’d had a better idea about this when I was younger. I might’ve come down to visit you.”

  I nod. “I wish I’d thought to invite you.”

  “Really…” Violet looks skeptical.

  “Would you like to see the rest of the house?” I offer, thinking it might be a good distraction or icebreaker or something.

  “Did you hire someone to clean things up?” asks Violet.

  “Actually, a couple of friends helped out. But I am trying to do it myself.”

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” says Caroline. “This is much classier than it used to be. I mean, your mom always kept it nice and cozy and comfortable, but this is, well, very sophisticated.”

  “It’s easy to be sophisticated when you have money,” says Violet.

  “And taste,” adds Caroline. “I’ve seen rich people with the tackiest taste.”

  “Actually, I don’t have money anymore,” I admit while we’re standing in the kitchen.

  Violet looks unconvinced.

  “It’s true. Gavin had an accountant who was a bit of a swindler. Instead of paying the IRS, he paid himself. I lost my house and most of my things for back taxes.”

  “Really?” Caroline shakes her head.

  “Yes. I didn’t want to tell anyone… It’s rather embarrassing to be broke. But then so many other things have embarrassed me… Well, I decided perhaps it shouldn’t matter so much.”

  “You really lost all your money?” Violet’s expression has softened, ever so slightly.

  “Yes. I’m even going to sell some of my art and things…so I can get by.”

  “Well, it’s not as if you’re destitute,” says Violet.

  “No, things could be worse.”

  We finish the brief tour, which puts my mind at ease, since they can see that things are a bit tidier than when they last visited, and finally we settle down in the living room with my coffee tray.

  “This is so nice,” says Caroline. “I’m so glad you invited me to join you today, Violet.”

  “I wasn’t sure what to expect,” says Violet. “I felt I might need the moral support.”

  “I told Violet that I’m sorry about my accusation the other day,” I tell Caroline. “I was very upset, and I suppose it seemed reasonable at the time.”

  Caroline just laughs. “Well, under the circumstances, it’s understandable.”

  “So what is this big thing you feel the need to tell me?” demands Violet. “Can we please just get whatever it is over with?”

  “It’s a somewhat private family matter, Violet. But I’m comfortable having Caroline here if you are.”

  Violet waves her hand. “I’m sure Caroline knows all the dirt on our family. Most of the town did.”

  “Not all the dirt…” I brace myself, unsure as to whether or not I can even relay Bea’s story. But my sister urges me on, so I tell her exactly what Bea told me, or as near as possible. All except for the part that directly concerned Violet.

  “That’s absurd,” says Violet.

  “Yes, that’s how I felt too…but then I remembered that Michael found a cast-iron frying pan under Mother’s bed. He said it was wrapped neatly in an old towel and then in a box. Rather mysterious, I thought at the time. But after Bea told me her story, I realized it must’ve been Mother’s way of hiding the murder weapon—although I do feel in some ways it was self-defense.”

  Violet just shakes her head, and I can tell she doesn’t believe this. “If you’d like to question Bea, I’m sure she’d be more than happy to cooperate. She’s kept the secret for decades. Well, except that she spoke of it once to Mother, and Mother swore her to secrecy.”

  “I think it’s believable,” says Caroline. “You know that your dad was a real skunk sometimes, Violet. If I’d been married to him, I’m sure I would’ve clobbered him over the head long before your mother did.”

  “I don’t think so…” Violet presses her lips together. “Mother put up with him for so many years. Why would she suddenly murder him?”

  I study my sister. “It has to do with us, Violet. Apparently Father said some things to Mother about us—disturbing things.”

  Violet’s eyes flash now. “What kinds of things?”

  I glance at Caroline.

  “It’s okay, Claudette,” Violet says in a surprisingly calm voice. “I want to know what kinds of things.”

  “I guess Father told Mother that he’d behaved improperly toward us, not in those words, of course, but it was an admission of sorts—even if it was a drunken one.”

  Violet’s face pales, and I’m worried that I’ve said too much. “We don’t have to talk about it anymore. I just thought you should know why Mother blew up like that. It was as if she suffered a form of temporary insanity because she loved her daughters so much, Violet. In a way, her reaction was in our defense.”

  “It wasn’t we or us or ours, Claudette.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it was me. I was the one who was abused. Not you. You escaped. You knew what was going on, but you got out. You left the monster to prey upon me.” Violet begins to cry.

  Caroline and I are sitting in the leather club chairs, and Violet is sitting alone on the couch. I get up and go over and do something completely out of character for me. I put my arm around her and pull her close to me.

  “I don’t know if I really did fully know at the time,” I confess. “I’ve been thinking hard about this whole thing ever since Bea told me that story. And I do think a part of me knew, but another part couldn’t admit that it was real. Or perhaps I suppressed it because it was too painful. Father hurt me too, Violet. Oh, not as badly as I’m sure he hurt you, but I suppose I wasn’t as strong as you either. And you’re right, I did run away.”

  Violet is sobbing onto my shoulder now, and Caroline comes over and joins us, putting her arms around Violet as well.

  “I am so sorry,” I say again. “If I could do it over…do it differently…I would.”

  Finally Violet is done crying. I hand her my handkerchief, and we all just sit there in silence.

  Violet takes a deep breath and then looks at me with watery eyes. “You know, I’ve been through lots of counseling for all this, Claudette. I suppose I thought I was far beyond it by now. But the one thing I could never get past, the one thing that always got under my skin…was you. I felt like you abandoned me.”

  “You’re right. I did. But I don’t think I consciously abandoned you. I was just running for my life.”

  “That’s not how it seemed.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry, Violet. I really am.”

  She slowly nods. “I know…”

  “I was se
lfish and foolish and shallow… I think I spent my whole life just trying to escape my childhood. And look where it got me.”

  “You can run, but you can’t hide,” Caroline says with a wry smile.

  “Maybe not.”

  Violet reaches over and embraces me. “I’ve missed you, Claudette.”

  “I’ve missed you too, Violet.”

  “Maybe we can start over.”

  “Yes,” I tell her. “I’d like that.”

  “Now, doesn’t it feel much better to have all of this out in the open?” Caroline pours herself a cup of coffee. “Now we can get back to the business of being old friends.”

  “With an emphasis on old?” I fill a coffee cup. “We have a lot of lost time to make up for.” I hand the cup to Violet.

  She shakes her head. “I’m still trying to imagine our mother hitting our father over the head with a frying pan. It’s so unlike her.”

  “That was my reaction too.”

  “And yet…I remember something she said once, shortly before she passed away.”

  I lean forward. “What?”

  “She’d been going to church for a few years by then.” Violet glanced at me. “Did you know that our mother became quite religious in her final years?”

  I nod. “I’ve recently become aware of this.”

  “It struck me as strange at first. You know how we’d rarely stepped inside a church growing up. But in those last years, Mother began reading from the Bible and attending church functions. And one day she told me that she could rest easy because she knew she was forgiven.” Violet presses her lips together and shakes her head again. “I told her I couldn’t imagine that she’d have done anything she needed to be forgiven for, and she just laughed.”

  “Laughed?” I set down my cup and wait.

  “Yes, she laughed and then told me that for all I knew, she could be a murderess.”

  “She actually said that?”

  Violet nodded. “Well, naturally, I just laughed too.”

  “Turns out it was true,” said Caroline.

  We all visit some more, and by the time Caroline and Violet leave, I feel that we have truly initiated a new beginning. I even promise to come for lunch on Thursday.

  As I’m clearing away the coffee things, my doorbell rings yet again. I suppress my agitation as I answer the door. No surprises here. It is Bea, and she has what appears to be a large black trash bag in her arms. I can only imagine what it contains. I hope she knows my trash can is full.

  “Come in,” I tell her, knowing it’s useless to do anything else.

  “I saw Violet and Caroline leaving,” she says with bright eyes. “How did your conversation with her go?”

  “It went quite well,” I say as she follows me to the kitchen.

  “I’m so glad.” She drops her garbage bag onto a kitchen chair and grins. “I brought you something.”

  I set the coffee tray by the sink and turn around in time to see her retrieving a pile of neatly folded white towels, which she places on the kitchen table.

  “What are those?”

  “Your towels.”

  I frown. “The ruined ones I threw out?”

  She lifts one now and then holds it up to my nose. “Smell?”

  I take a cautious sniff and am surprised. Not only does it smell clean, it smells like fresh lavender. “Are these really my towels?” I touch the fabric to see that it feels like real Egyptian cotton. I brush it against my cheek and am amazed at the softness.

  She grins as if she’s terribly pleased with herself. “First I did a rinse cycle in really hot water, and after that I washed them in bleach and finally…” She produces a purple jug of what appears to be laundry soap from her black bag of tricks. “I washed them in this—lavender-scented laundry soap.”

  I now have tears running down my cheeks. “You did this for me?”

  She simply nods.

  “But I told you that you could keep them…”

  “They’re yours, Claudette. I just wanted to show you that even if something looks all useless and wasted and soiled and ruined…there’s still hope. Sometimes things can be rescued.”

  “I believe you’re right.” Then to my utter surprise, I reach out and hug her. And I think to myself that not only things can be rescued but perhaps people as well.

  Two weeks later and just two weeks before Christmas, Garth and Celia host their special art exhibit at the Phoenix. I’ve invited Violet, Caroline, and Eddie. I also invite Irene and Page and my new book group friends to come as well as many of the other friends and acquaintances I’ve made since moving back to Silverton. I fully expect it to be quite a well-attended show. At the last minute, I even invite Bea, and dressed in her eggplant suit, she happily rides with me to the gallery festivities.

  Celia has somehow managed to get her press release about the exhibit into many of the major papers along the West Coast, so expectations are high. And Garth has been dubbing the event as “a tribute to the late Gavin Fioré.” To further liven things up, he has several reproduction movie posters from Gavin’s films on display, and there is live music, wine, and appetizers. For Silverton, it is rather a big and impressive affair. I am a little disappointed that Michael and Richard can’t make it, but they’ve promised to try to get out here before the exhibit ends on New Year’s.

  I am pleasantly surprised to see that a number of well-known and wealthy patrons of the arts make an appearance. Naturally, I know many of these people. I have socialized with them and attended benefits with them, and they know and recognize me. They politely pay their respects, inquiring as to my health and well-being and whatnot.

  I smile and tell them that I’m finding life in Silverton to be rather charming and something of a delightful change from the hectic pace of Southern California—and this time I am not lying. Oh, I don’t go into all the gory details, and I have no doubt they’ve heard of my financial ruin. But I don’t really care. And I suppose that surprises me.

  But what shocks me even more this evening is that I don’t feel drawn to the old camaraderie. I feel no sense of comfort in their stuffy conversation, no real warmth in their slightly superior-looking smiles. Instead I feel strangely attracted to this new, and somewhat old, circle of friends. They are more genuine, more interesting, and yes, even more compelling than all my old friends—if they really were friends at all. And for the first time in my life, I feel entirely at home here in Silverton.

  Not only that, but I feel I have more lessons to learn in this life, more things I must discover before I make my way into the next. And I’m starting to grasp what both Gavin and my mother believed in their final days: that God is real—and that he cares about me. Consequently, I now pick up Violet and Caroline on Sundays, and we all attend our mother’s church together.

  And I have begun to look at aging differently too… I’m beginning to understand that true beauty is not what you see in the limelight but what you experience once the lights have gone out.

  Readers Guide

  What was your first response to meeting Claudette? Did you dislike her? pity her? feel confused by her? Explain.

  Do you know anyone like Claudette? If so, what is that relationship like? How would you like it to change?

  Why do you think Claudette was so shallow?

  Who was your favorite character in this book? Why?

  What part of Claudette’s personality, if any, can you relate to?

  How many close friends do you think Claudette had before she moved back to Silverton? Describe what you think those relationships were like.

  Do you have many elderly friends? Why or why not?

  What’s your personal attitude toward aging? Do you embrace it? hold it at arm’s length? pretend it won’t happen? take it in stride? Explain.

  What part, if any, of your life do you think might be shallow? Why?

  What incident(s) do you think brought about the most change in Claudette? Why?

  LIMELIGHT

  PUBLISHED BY M
ULTNOMAH BOOKS

  12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200

  Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by Carlson Management Co. Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

  MULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Carlson, Melody.

  Limelight : a novel / Melody Carlson.— 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-60142-256-9

  I. Title.

  PS3553.A73257L56 2009

  813′.54—dc22

  2009014683

  v3.0