Vivien checked her watch and wondered if Miss LaFontain had communicated the right hour to Tee. He was a few minutes late for the first time, and she felt anxious and worried.
As she mentally pictured the horrible traffic in the city at that hour, she heard an engine and ran to the window. A strange car parked right behind her Lexus, and Tee climbed out of it. An ominous thought clouded her soul again. Oh, God, please tell me I’m wrong, she prayed silently as she speculated about what could have happened to Tee’s silver Mercedes.
Vivien opened the door and walked to the driveway to welcome him. She saw his face beaming with joy, and her heart missed a beat.
“What happened to your car?”
“Please Vee, don’t adulterate the sheer bliss of seeing you again.”
His warm brown eyes wrapped her in an intense gaze, as if the world were on the verge of starting with her all over again that very moment. “My Mercedes is in the repair shop for the first time in its existence,” he told her.
Vivien didn’t dare to ask him any more questions. As they entered the house, she gave him the news about Igor’s accident and watched the shock and indignation altering his features. He lapsed into a pensive state and let her prepare her piano scores for that evening. Her heart urged her to fling her arms around him and kiss him senseless. Her mind repeated cruelly: He did it. He did it. He hit Igor with his silver Mercedes.
She played Chopin, a few nocturnes and her favorite waltz, No 7. She told him about her new little students, and Tee accepted gladly to come two hours later every day. When the moment arrived for him to leave, Vivien couldn’t look him in the eye. Timothy spoke softly, and unequivocal love and obvious concern pulsed in every word.
“I would’ve accompanied you to Arlene’s memorial service and to the hospital to see Igor today. You should’ve told me, Vee. Before anything else, I’m your friend, and I want to be by your side when you need someone. Call me anytime, in the middle of the night if you need me. Well… especially in the middle of the night! That would be the best time to need me,” he tried a little joke, hopping to dispel some of her melancholy.
She didn’t answer and didn’t reward his effort with the faintest smile. As his eyes caught the blue of her dancing irises briefly, he discovered something strange in there. It was a frustratingly indecipherable reflection of her feelings.
“Don’t fence me out, Vee! Just call me anytime you need me,” he insisted. “Nothing could stop me from coming to you, and nothing makes me happier than being around you.”
Vivien nodded silently and stepped back inside. She thought about how much she wanted him and how much he wanted her. It would’ve been so easy to call him back and tell him the words she really burned to tell him. To forget her prejudices and sleep with a man she’d spent only a few hours with so far, it would’ve been a piece of cake now, when she knew how much they craved for each other’s touch. To ignore the suspicion that poisoned her happiness, it was the hardest thing. She locked the door behind him. Her gaze followed him through the kitchen blinds as he got into the rented car and left. He seemed downcast, and her heart ached for him. Warm tears filled her eyes. I’m doomed, she thought terrified. I could be in love with a murderer. So crazily in love with him…
CHAPTER 13
His front door left cracked opened didn’t scare Timothy in the least. He pushed it angrily, stepped inside, and turned on the lights. Clark welcomed him unctuously.
“Wow, wow, I can see my bottle in the dark,” he protested. “I don’t need the lights on!”
“But I do,” Timothy snapped.
Clark appeared to be quite intoxicated. His speech was suffering from it, but that didn’t keep him from talking.
“And good evening to you too, little brother! Welcome home! Have you screwed her tonight? Is that why you came home so late? Well, judging by the acrimony you exhibit, I take it you didn’t. What a pity! She’s such a fine piece of ass that Vivien! But she plays it hard to get, doesn’t she? It’s a tough road to her bed. All that sentimental rubbish you have to pull on her to get there! Or maybe… maybe ‘you’ve lost your muchness’?” He let out a “hic”. The alcohol gave him the hiccups. “Anyway, I was so anxiously waiting for you in the silent company of this whiskey bottle. I thought you’d want to help me finish it off,” he said, tottering with a bottle of Glen Livet in one hand and a beer in the other. “I use this horse piss to dilute it,” he explained, pointing to the beer.
“I was hoping you’d take my advice and disappear from my house this evening,” Timothy replied disgusted.
“Timmy, Timmy, Timmy,” Clark sang, approaching him and breathing into his face a nauseating stench of alcohol. “Don’t you get it, mate? It doesn’t take a scientist to figure it out. Women are unable to love us. Let’s take mother for example…”
“Mother is dead! Leave her in peace!”
“I know,” Clark nodded and hiccupped again. “One should only say good things about the dead. But what good did mother do in her life, besides the fact that she overdosed on pain pills of all sorts, colors, and shapes, until she kicked the bucket prematurely? Huh?”
“She gave us life,” Timothy retorted harshly. “For that, you should respect her memory forever. She went through many treatments, and she cut her belly to have us. From both pregnancies, she developed chronic back pain. That’s why she was taking pain medication.”
“Huh! What do you know, little Timmy? You’re smart, you’re intelligent, and they even called you a genius in architecture! Hats off to you! And still, you’re so naïve! And you’re such a damn, hopeless softie! Mother had us because she hoped we would be girls! But we weren’t! Oops! Buggers! She didn’t want boys, for Christ’s sake! When the reality hit her in the face, she abandoned us without any remorse. She sent me to father in London, with not even a proper peck on my cheek, and she left you in the care of those babysitters. By the way, when they would find out what a bitch she really was, they would take off pretty fast, wouldn’t they? How many did you have in total? Fifteen? Twenty? An army? You lost track of them, didn’t you?”
Still upset and confused by Vivien’s reserved attitude that evening, Timothy had planned to retire to his bedroom. However, he felt a bit hungry and wanted to prepare himself a quick sandwich. He struggled to ignore his brother’s annoyingly inebriated presence. To his despair, Clark just wouldn’t give up.
“Do you know what she did to father? Do you realize what their divorce meant to him? It destroyed him. Literally!”
“The drinking destroyed him. And sadly, it seems that you’re following in his steps,” Timothy retaliated caustically.
“You’re an idealist, Timmy boy. You’re chasing dreams and phantoms. Tell me, do you really believe this woman loves you? Are you so dumb, Tim? She loves Mozart, Beethoven, and Shubert… She loves her piano, but she doesn’t love you! You’re her flavor of the month probably! Just a capriccio, mi amico!”
Timothy felt his mind on the verge of exploding. This peculiar conversation with his brother was just the thing he didn’t need right now. Actually, the mere sight of Clark drove Timothy crazy tonight.
“Clark, do yourself a favor and don’t get Vivien involved in your verbal mire. Take this as a warning,” he said clearly.
“Oh! How romantic! Ye, Gods! Your exaggerated good manners make me queasy, mate! Well… well… If you’re not the legendary Knight in White Armor fighting for your woman’s honor! What are you going to do now? Provoke me to a duel? Do you really want to know what I think about your gorgeous piano teacher? The-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth shit? OK, fine! I’ll tell you what I think about her. She looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth! But you can’t even begin to imagine what a detestable little hypocrite she is.”
“Enough!” Timothy shouted.
“Do you want proof?” Clark grumbled like a bear with a sore head. “OK, let’s have it out.” He planked the beer bottle by the sink and started to search the pockets of his pants. He produced
a small plastic bag and a business card.
“Look what I found in her house today…”
Timothy flew at his brother’s throat, caught him roughly by the collar of his shirt, and pushed him up against the wall.
“Did you have the guts to enter her house? Did you touch her? Answer me, you filthy misogynic bastard, or I’ll beat you within an inch of your life,” Timothy threatened. He was in a thundering rage.
“Calm down mate!” Clark faltered, even though he knew his brother wouldn’t hurt him. But then again, he had never seen Timothy so in love before. “There isn’t only bad news about your dream-pussy. I have good news also. She’s not the crazy bitch who sends you dirty emails. I checked her personal computer today, while she was gone. That’s all I did. I swear to God! I haven’t even seen her.”
Disgusted and tired of arguing with a frustrated drunk, Timothy let go of Clark. Curiosity drove his eyes to the small plastic bag and the business card.
“Where did you find that?” he inquired brusquely.
Clark stuttered.
“Ah… I… I found it by the computer, on her desk,” he lied, looking to justify his action and add drama to the situation. It wouldn’t have been tactful to admit that it had been a discarded item lying in her bathroom garbage can.
Why would Vivien clip Detective Leonard’s business card with an empty sandwich bag and write my name on it? Timothy wondered silently.
“Look closely, Timmy! There is blonde hair in that plastic bag. Your hair, to be precise! The woman collected DNA sample for the police. She suspects you of something bad, really bad, mate! She believes you’re a murderer,” Clark declared, extremely proud of his discovery. He gave a harsh, ill-humored laugh. “What do you think? That she’s in love with you?” he pressed spitefully.
Timothy felt his blood boiling. His brother’s words pierced at his heart. Even more so, as he had to recognize that Clark was right.
His first impulse was to jump into his car immediately and go directly to her house. He wanted to see her face, her eyes, when she accused him of murder. It was hard for him to accept the idea that his lovely Vee had such an awful opinion about him - especially at this specific time in his life, when her opinion counted the most.
Overwhelmed with sadness, disappointed, and disoriented, he slowly ascended the stairs to his bedroom.
CHAPTER 14
Worn out by the day’s difficult events, Vivien took a long bath and went to bed earlier than usual. She tossed and turned for at least an hour, trying unsuccessfully to chase away from her memory Tee’s saddened face and his brown eyes showering her with passion. After her nightly prayer, between dreams and reality, she whispered with her grandmother’s visage in her mind:
“What should I do, granny? What should I do? You always had a solution to any problem.”
A few hours later, in the middle of the night, she awoke abruptly from a strange dream. Her delicate nightgown was wet with cold perspiration. She was shivering uncontrollably. Her pulse rate was rapid and strong, and her ears still registered the eerie echo of her grandmother’s words: “It’s time for you to pray, Vivien. Pray, my dear child, pray!”
She had called her, and the old woman had come to help her. Everybody had something bad to say about Carol Hopkins, but for Vivien, granny had always had an open heart that had overflowed with kindness.
The young woman got up and switched on the bedside lamp on her nightstand. She remembered her grandmother’s Bible. She had not found it anywhere. Carol Hopkins had never slept without her black leather covered Bible beside her pillow. She had made a habit of carrying it to church every Sunday, and it had never been missing from her luggage if she would happen to leave home.
First thing the following morning, Vivien called Mr. Mc Norman, the preacher at Saint Peter Episcopalian Church in Woodside, where Carol had attended Sunday mass with regularity most of her life.
Vivien had barely finished introducing herself, when the preacher exclaimed joyfully:
“Miss Hopkins, I am so happy to hear from you! Carol left her Bible in my care the Sunday before her death. She insisted that I should give it to you and only you. You see, I think she had a premonition; she knew she would die soon. And she loved her Bible and you. God bless her heart! I’m so sorry I was vacationing in Europe when she died.”
Half an hour later, Vivien hugged at her chest her granny’s dearest book. She thanked the preacher and parenthetically mentioned her dream from the night before.
“God be with you, child,” Mr. Mc Norman wished Vivien, as he accompanied her to the car. “Your grandmother was a wonderful woman who lived her life in the light of her unwavering faith in God. It seems that you two had a truly close relationship. This level of communication through dreams and premonitions is possible between loving souls.”
The minute she was alone, Vivien skimmed through the Holly Bible hoping to find a letter, a picture, anything of importance. All she found was a membership card at a golf club in the neighboring city, Atherton. Grandma’ never played golf! With a melancholic smile, Vivien recalled the old woman’s comic remark vis-à-vis that aristocratic sport that is extremely popular in California. “I don’t have the balls to hit the balls.” That had been her usual, funny way to decline a friend’s invitation to the game.
The select and well-known club happened to be in Vivien’s way back to her house. She stopped and discovered astonished that Carol Hopkins, although deceased for a month now, still figured on all lists as an honorable member.
A pleasant young man with a neat appearance guided Vivien to the locker room. The membership card worked also as a key for opening her grandmother’s storage compartment. The old woman had reposited a complete brand-new set of golf equipment inside it. She had not even bothered to take the time to remove the price tags. Behind the white leather golf bag filled with never-used clubs and balls, Vivien came upon a big carton box.
“I will only keep the box. If you want it, the golf equipment is yours,” she told the young employee of the club.
“Are you sure?” he asked dumbfounded. It wasn’t every day that someone – a total stranger for that matter - offered him such an expensive gift. He got a tip every now and then, but nothing of these proportions.
“Absolutely,” Vivien assured him. The box was the single thing that interested her. That was what her grandmother had wanted her to have. The golf equipment had been put there with the sole reason to save appearances.
She arrived home just in time to see her gardener preparing to leave.
“Buenos dias, Rosario!” she greeted him. “You did a wonderful job yesterday. My garden is not on your schedule today, or is it?” she smiled confused.
“No, Miss Vivien, I just stopped by to ask you a big favor,” Rosario said, changing his body weight from one foot to the other and twisting his hat with his calloused hands. “Could you tell your friend, Mr. Timothy Leigh, that I thank him for the check? He gave me a lot more than it’s needed. The repair of my trailer costs less than half of what he sent.”
Vivien looked at him bemused.
“Rosario, I’m sorry, but I’m having problems following you.”
“He didn’t tell you? He hit my trailer yesterday. You weren’t home around noon when he came to visit.”
Vivien felt the unexpected joy blooming rapidly inside her soul. She would’ve liked to embrace Rosario, but she managed to control herself. That would’ve probably given her poor gardener a heart attack! So Tee hasn’t damaged his car hitting Igor, she thought relieved. The realization also made her feel guilty that she had suspected him of such a horrible act. In the light of the new revelation, she acknowledged optimistically that even Igor’s tape was far from accusing Tee of any actual wrongdoing. To think that he had killed Mademoiselle Lili and had made Nadine vanish without a trace was a far-fetched conclusion, if one based it solely on that video. Igor’s tape proved only that Tee – if that masked person were Tee indeed! – knew about his fiancée’s well-kept s
ecret, that she enjoyed women too.
All at once, she felt the suffocating, obscuring haze of mistrust and speculations lifting like magic from her soul. A maddening exuberance took its place. She could think of him now without any restraint, she could love him now without feeling cursed.
As her heart sang with happiness, Vivien brought her grandmother’s intriguing box into her bedroom, and she opened it. She uncovered a huge pile of papers and pictures in apparent disorder, and she anxiously rummaged through them for a few minutes but found nothing personal. She was quite disappointed. She had expected a letter from her grandmother or at least a simple, handwritten note from her lying on top of everything else. She looked at young, attractive women she had never seen before who smiled at her from photographs of all sizes untidily attached to copies of scholarship checks. Her first thought was that Carol Hopkins had been involved in a charitable organization, and the old woman had wanted Vivien to continue her work.
“She was such a large-hearted human being, God bless her,” the young girl whispered alone, moved to tears.
She realized that she needed hours, maybe an entire day, to read everything and comprehend her grandmother’s true message to her. She took a red marker and wrote GRANNY on the box. Heaving a sigh, she pushed it under her bed, and then she went into the kitchen. Tomorrow, when I will have more time on my hands, I will check every document very carefully, she promised herself.
Now she had plans. Friday was her cooking day. It was a pleasure that laced harmoniously with necessity. She liked to know what she put into her body down to the last dash of pepper. She exaggerated a bit– she was aware of that – but she was unable to give in and start eating in a restaurant like most people she knew.
Maybe Tee would help me get over this phobia.
With Tee, she felt capable of doing anything. Until then though, tonight, she would invite him to have a simple and quiet dinner at her house.
Vivien’s state of exultation reached new heights around noon. The brown UPS truck stopped in front of her house, and a young black man, all smiles, brought her a fancy package from Victoria’s Secret. The expeditor was none other than her darling Tee. Eager to see what was inside, she opened the signature pink box and revealed four exquisitely fashioned silk blouses. A small black envelope tied with fine pink ribbon contained a typed personal message that raised her body temperature to a euphoric level. Every word, every sentence spoke of his love and attraction to her, from the endearing salutation, down to the memorable Latin motto that was a subtle invitation to a new, more advanced level in their relationship.
Broken Serenade Page 12
