Well, not exactly. Pablo cradled my face, looked deeply into my eyes, and said, “You know, I was thinking when we were dancing tonight that we’re so lucky that we enjoy each other so much without feeling any pressure to get married. That we both agree about that.” He hugged me close.
My heart sank. This is how it always is with him, I thought. Close but not too close. How could I forget? At that point I realized he was right—we do best when we enjoy what we have, without a long-term commitment. And I didn’t want marriage either. I had gotten caught up in the romantic wedding atmosphere, but was now back to reality. “I know what you mean,” I said. “What we have is perfect for me. I don’t want to think about forever.”
We curled up and slept spoon-style until 3:00 a.m., when I startled awake. The room was dark but enough light shone under the room door from the hall that I could see the shapes of the furniture. I had that momentary disoriented feeling you get when you wake up in a hotel room not knowing at first where you are. The room was quiet except for Pablo’s snoring. I felt a prickly sensation at the back of my neck, a strong impression that someone was in the room, and that odd lightheadedness I often get when Tyler shows up.
I sat up and turned my head slowly from side to side, casing the room, expecting Tyler to pop up. But he didn’t. Then I found myself looking into a large mirror hanging over the antique dresser across from me. A bit of light crept in around the window curtains and reflected in the mirror like a tiny lamp. As I stared at that light, I saw a beautiful teen-aged girl with dark hair, blue eyes and fair skin looking longingly in my direction. “Please,” she said. “Please. They need you.” Then she vanished.
I sat quietly and waited for more, but I knew she was gone. The feeling of an otherworldly presence wasn’t there any longer. Who was she? And who needed me? The Townes family? Someone else? I ran questions and possibilities through my mind as I snuggled back into Pablo, and the next thing I knew it was 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning.
We grabbed a quick breakfast and set off down the canyon because Pablo needed to get back to Boulder by early afternoon. He was leaving that night for a weeklong training course in Atlanta. Something about crisis intervention where officers get trained to deal with people who are having a mental health crisis or are on a mood-altering substance. I wondered briefly whether training like that would make him more understanding of my occasional emotional outbursts or whether he’d just try to “handle” me in some new professional way.
When we got down as far as Lyons, I turned on my phone to check for messages. The mountains are iffy for cell phone reception, so I hadn’t even bothered to keep my phone on while I was up there. There was one from Tim Grosso in his volunteer ombudsman role letting me know about a family meeting set for Sunday afternoon at Shady Terrace. Then six from Lacey Townes, each more urgent than the last, going on and on about how she absolutely had to meet with me. I skipped to the end of most of those, saving them to listen to later.
“Looks like you missed a bunch of messages,” Pablo said. “Do you have some desperate grief-therapy clients?”
“Sort of,” I said, not wanting to get into the Lacey thing with him again. “But it was also Tim Grosso about a family meeting at Shady Terrace at 4:00 today. I feel like I’m sinking in the quicksand with this relocation thing, so I hope he has some good news for us.”
“Seems odd that he’s doing this ombudsman thing.” Pablo gave me a strange sideways look. “How well do you know Tim Grosso?”
“Not well. Why?”
“I wouldn’t think he’d like dealing with rules and regulations much. He’s kind of an old Boulder hippie type, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “No long hair—he’s bald. And he has a traditional job. He’s the head of the university Psych Department. He hired me to teach that paranormal class and he seemed concerned the class might not be respectable enough. Warned me it was on a trial basis. Why do you think he’s a hippie type?”
“He’s one of those don’t-trust-the-cops guys. The word is that he grows a lot of pot—not at home, probably at various places in the mountains. No one has been able to find where it is or to catch him at it yet, though.”
That was a surprisingly different take on Tim. I hadn’t thought of him that way at all, especially because he’s my boss at the university. Still, he is a mellow guy and drugs aren’t that unusual in Boulder. Plus Pablo isn’t often wrong about this sort of thing. “So how do you know he’s doing it?” I asked.
He brushed me off. “I don’t. In fact you should probably forget I mentioned it. It’s not important to what he’s doing for you. I’m not even sure why I brought it up.”
Before I could probe further, he changed the subject. “Hey, do you mind stopping at Faye’s when we get to town so I can see if any more of my stuff sold since the opening?”
I decided to let the Tim thing go until another time. “Sure. Let’s stop.”
We were on North Broadway by then so it was only a few minutes to the gallery. Once there, we went straight to Pablo’s work to look for red “sold” stickers and to our delight found two new ones—one on a steel dog with big round eyes and pointy ears, and the other on a rusty bird with long spindly legs. We were hugging each other and laughing when a stocky broad-shouldered guy with large muscled arms and legs came along and stood right next to us, staring at me intently from under dark bushy eyebrows.
“Cleo?” he asked. “You look great! How have you been?”
Whoa! I recognized those muscles and the eyebrows and the cowlick in his straight dark hair. Back about ten years ago I’d been on intimate terms with every part of this guy’s body. But I hadn’t seen or heard from him since we broke up and he moved to California.
“Ohmigod! Brian?? What are you doing back in Boulder?” Shock and awe hit me full in the face. And it didn’t help any that Pablo was standing right next to me. Brian and I were together during the years Pablo was away finding his inner muse, so Pablo had never met him, although I had mentioned him occasionally. Now I’d have to introduce them.
“It’s a long story,” Brian said slowly. “A lot of things have changed in my life. I’ve actually been back here about a year.” He paused briefly as if collecting his thoughts, then continued in a cheerful tone that rang a little false. “I thought about looking you up, but it’s been so long and I felt embarrassed that I hadn’t called. So I was waiting for the right moment to come along, and here it is.”
Wow! What were the odds that Pablo and I would both reconnect in the same week with former lovers from years ago? Not that I felt any connection to Brian—but anyway, here he was.
If there’s any good way to introduce a former boyfriend to a current one, I don’t know what it is. So I sucked it up and forged ahead. “Um, Brian, this is my boyfriend Pablo. This is his work here that we’re looking at. Pablo, this is Brian. He’s an old friend.” Just like Mia is your old friend, I thought.
They shook hands and muttered polite, not very sincere nice-to-meet-yous. To break the tension, I turned to Brian and asked, “Do you come to Faye’s gallery often?”
“Sometimes. Not often. But today I came to see Angelica Townes’ paintings,” Brian said motioning toward the back of the gallery where her work was hung.
“So you know Angelica?” I asked.
“Not well, but I knew her mother and I know how proud she was of Angelica’s art, so I wanted to see her show. I’d say she’s talented for a ten-year-old. But you’re the artist. What do you think?”
Brian looked genuinely interested in my opinion, but I didn’t want to engage him in conversation. “We were here for the opening, but it was crowded and I didn’t get much chance to look at her work,” I said.
“Sure. Well, I have to go right now anyway. But maybe we can get together next week and catch up. Give me a call when you have some time.” He stuck a card in my hand, waved and headed out the front door.
“Okay. See you. Bye.” I stuttered, still in a daze. I glanc
ed down at his card. “Brian Alavi, Creative Graphic Design.” A phone number and a web address followed. Did he really expect me to call? Especially after he’d been in town for a year but hadn’t called me? That was so Brian. Always needing to be in control, looking for the perfect way to present himself. Thinking he could design his life as if it were a book cover or a brochure.
I noticed that Pablo wasn’t standing next to me anymore, looked around and found him talking to Faye over at the counter in the middle of the gallery. When I walked up, their conversation seemed to take a sudden turn as if I’d interrupted a confidential talk.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Faye was filling me in on who bought my work,” Pablo said.
“And dishing the dirt on your old boyfriend,” Faye leaned back against the counter and gave me a big smirk.
“What dirt?” I asked.
“Was he a Scientologist when you were together?” Faye asked.
I laughed. “A Scientologist? No way! Brian? He was so conventional he thought vegetarians were weird. You’re not saying he’s a Scientologist now, are you?”
Faye nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. He’s a Scientologist all right. Very involved. He came in here one day with Mirabel Townes—you know she was the silent partner in this gallery, so she was here quite a bit. Anyway he gave me a bunch of literature about the way to happiness and invited me to a free lecture.”
“Yes, I heard that Mirabel became a Scientologist after her daughter died,” I said, remembering what Elisa had told me.
“True,” Faye said, “but one thing I have to say for Mirabel, after she got into Scientology she never tried to convert me. But this guy Brian is quite the evangelist.”
“Sounds like you and Brian have a lot to catch up with,” Pablo said.
“At least as much as you and Mia,” I shot back.
“Touché,” Pablo said with a grin. “How about we drop the former-relationships argument and head home. I have a plane to catch tonight.”
“Deal,” I said. But I didn’t need to be psychic to know that we’d be revisiting the Mia and Brian part of our relationship in the weeks to come.
Chapter 9
Right after Pablo dropped me off at home, I drove over to Shady Terrace so I’d have time to visit Gramma before Tim Grosso’s relocation meeting for the residents’ families. She was in her room just waking up from an after-lunch nap. I sat down on the side of her bed and gave her a slow, gentle hug. She doesn’t always recognize me, and when she’s waking up she’s more confused than usual, so I wanted to be careful not to startle her.
“Hi, Gramma,” I said. “I’ve been missing you.”
“Where was I?” she sounded worried.
“It’s okay. You were right here. But I wasn’t. I went to a wedding in Estes Park and then Pablo and I stopped by Faye’s gallery.”
She squirmed, got to her feet, and started toward the door, looking troubled. “Faye’s gallery. I need to finish my paintings.” These days Gramma lives more in the past than the present, so she sometimes thinks she has a deadline to meet getting paintings ready for a show. Back in the day she was usually more excited than anxious about an upcoming show, but now the agitation and confusion that accompany Alzheimer’s throw her into a panic at the idea.
I put my arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. Faye has plenty of your paintings at the gallery. Would you like to get some ice cream?”
“Chocolate?” she asked.
We walked together to the activity room where they have ice cream, juice and other snacks available for the residents any time. Several other residents were watching a travelogue on the large-screen TV. I told her I had to go to a meeting and left her there eating her ice cream with them, while I went off to find out what Tim had come up with to help us deal with Shady Terrace’s closing.
Twenty or so family members were already gathered in the faux-town-square lobby when I walked in. To my surprise, one of them was Derrick Townes. I took a chair next to him, reminded him that we’d met Friday night at Faye’s gallery, and told him how worried I was about having to move Gramma.
“I know,” he commiserated. “My dad’s been here ever since his stroke last year. He’s on Medicaid so we were lucky to find this place. It wasn’t easy. I don’t know what we’ll do now.”
I thought the Townes family was rich. Why would he be so short of money that his father had to go on Medicaid? At least Gramma has money to pay for her care, which gives her more choices. I silently thanked Grampa’s financial management skills.
The room had filled up by then and Tim was passing out copies of a Boulder County Senior Housing Guide that had information about all the long-term-care facilities in the county. I opened the booklet and began reading through a list of things to look for when touring a facility, like whether there are unpleasant odors, whether the residents are appropriately dressed and so on. My heart sank. Where was I going to find a place that measured up to all these criteria? And if I did find such a place, would it have openings? I was getting more and more scared for Gramma.
Tim got the meeting started by directing our attention to charts in the booklet that listed various living facilities, showed their locations on a map, and gave information about costs, services, levels of care and such for each place. “I would recommend that you decide on some places to visit,” he said. “If you call our office we can give you information on how various places did on their health department surveys and whether there have been complaints against them.”
“But we aren’t in a position to be picky are we?” a plump blonde woman asked. “Aren’t most of the places full?”
“Some are,” Tim admitted. “But quite a few have vacancies.”
“I need to have my husband in a place I can visit easily,” a gaunt gray-haired woman said. “Doesn’t Shady Terrace have some obligation to help me find a good place for him?” She sounded close to tears.
“They do, and they will help. But it’s best if you can check out the places yourself so you can choose the one you like best.”
“This is all bogus.” Derrick had jumped to his feet to confront Tim. “You’re not here to help us. You’re supposed to be neutral but it looks like you’re just trying to help Shady Terrace look good. If this was happening to your own father, you wouldn’t be so calm. We need to stick together and make them keep Shady Terrace open. Why don’t you help us with that?” His face was as red as his crimson sweater, and sweat trickled down his face.
Tim stayed cool as he answered slowly. “Actually as a long-term-care ombudsman I’m not supposed to be neutral. My job is to advocate for the rights of the residents. But I don’t know any way to keep Shady Terrace from closing and if I pretended I did, I’d be leading you on a path away from what you need to be doing, and I certainly wouldn’t be helping you.”
“Forget it! I’m not going to waste any more of my time here,” Derrick said, stalking off to the front door. His dramatic exit was spoiled when he had to stop and find a staff member to put in the door code to let him out, but he’d made his point. And although I personally did believe Tim was trying his best to help us, I was beginning to realize that there wasn’t much he could do.
My mood was dragging bottom when I left the meeting, so when I stopped at Wild Oats to get groceries I picked up roasted salmon and asparagus for dinner to cheer myself up. At home I put on one of my favorite Sex and the City DVDs, had a couple of glasses of wine and ate my meal. Then, feeling a bit more mellow, I got out my cell phone and listened again to Lacey’s messages.
The first message came in Saturday afternoon at 2:30. “Cleo, it’s Lacey Townes. We talked after class on Friday. About my mom and how my sister and I need to reach her. It’s urgent!” Her voice rose in pitch and volume. “I can’t believe I didn’t get you. We have to meet with you. I don’t know if you meet clients on weekends, but you must have some sort of emergency coverage. And this is one. An emergency! This is a huge emergency! So call me a
t 303-819-8203 as soon as you get this message.”
Whew. She definitely sounded frantic, but I didn’t share her sense of urgency at that point. Even if I’d gotten that message on Saturday, I wouldn’t have responded. My emergency weekend coverage doesn’t extend to wanna-be clients.
She left another hysterical message Saturday at 4:30. “Cleo, Lacey again. Where are you? You have to help me! I have no one else to turn to. How can I ever live with myself if I don’t find out what happened to Mom? You have this gift. How can you refuse to help us? I told Angelica you’d be sure to call today. So don’t make a liar out of me, okay. Call me at 303-819-8203. Please!!”
The desperation in her voice made me cautious. Is everything she wants an emergency for her? Clients like that can be a therapist’s nightmare.
Saturday at 6:30 she had called again. She’d gotten into a two-hour pattern. Her voice was shriller and even more frenzied this time. “Cleo, this is the worst day of my life. My dad overheard us saying that we think someone drowned Mom, and he threw a fit and yelled at us that we were desecrating Mom’s memory, looking to create a scandal and on and on. But we’re not giving up. I promised Angelica I’d get you to help us. If my mom was murdered, don’t you think she deserves justice? We have to find out if Angelica is right that someone actually drowned Mom. After all my mom did for this community, she deserves better than to have someone drown her and get away with it. Please call me!”
Looking past the hysterics, I could relate to having a difficult, demanding father. My dad never likes the choices I make in life and is fond of letting me know how I could do better. After the behavior I’d seen from Derrick Townes this morning, I sympathized with Lacey and Angelica. Lacey’s argument about Mirabel deserving justice also hit home. In fact I’d made that exact argument to Elisa on Friday. If there was any chance that Mirabel’s death wasn’t accidental, someone should take another look.
Too Far Under Page 6
