Fiona

by Gemma Whelan

  “Pam,” Fiona continued after a pause, “I’m really sorry about earlier—at the office.”

  “It’s okay—no sweat. I know you were strung out. Mind you, I didn’t know how badly or I would definitely have tried to keep you off the streets. I didn’t know you were going to turn into a maniac!”

  Fiona smiled. They both sat in silence and enjoyed the tea and the calm. Fiona fingered the partly made doll.

  “I’ve decided to do it, Pam—the film.”

  Pam spluttered on a mouthful of tea. “Okay. When did you decide this? In the shower?”

  Fiona laughed. “No, that’s really why I called you—and of course because I needed help.”

  “Mr. Collins will be pleased. He was very disappointed you weren’t interested in working on the project.”

  “I still don’t know what good I’ll be to him.”

  “I’m sure he’ll figure it out—he sounds very competent.”

  Fiona recalled the voice on her machine. He had sounded quietly confident. Trustworthy—was the word that came to her mind. Maybe that had in some unconscious way fueled her decision to take this step, even though she didn’t feel at all assured of the outcome. That, and the very conscious knowledge that she had no choice if she wanted a writing career.

  Fiona fiddled with her cup, turning it slowly in a circle.

  “I do know that you gave me an ultimatum, back at the office. I know this will buy me some time, at best.”

  Pam reached over for the doll Fiona had started. “And it will make the publisher happy. Keep him at bay for a while.”

  Fiona nodded.

  “I’ll fix up all the legal issues for you. I’ll stipulate ‘consultant’—no writing, if that’s what you want?”

  “Thanks, for now anyway.” She looked over at Pam who was examining the new doll. “I feel like I’m going into the jungle.”

  Pam laughed. “More like leaving it I’d say! You mean L.A.? You might need a few new wardrobe items!”

  “No, I mean the past! And L.A. too—Declan’s there. What do you mean by ‘wardrobe items’, may I ask? Is this a hint?”

  “Well, you might want to show off a bit more flesh! Flaunt that lovely figure!”

  Fiona grabbed back the doll from Pam. Pam threw her hands in the air in mock capitulation. “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Oh, Pam! I’m comfortable in these kind of clothes.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure the caterpillar is very comfortable too in his old skin—for a while.”

  Fiona laughed. “Are you suggesting that I am emerging? Need to shed my old skin?”

  “I bet you can find a butterfly store in L.A.!”

  “Called ‘Metamorphosis’?”

  They both laughed, and Pam gave Fiona a tight hug.

  “Hey, girl, I’m going to miss all this silliness! More tea?”

  Fiona warmed her hands with the cup as Pam poured. “Ironic, isn’t it, Pam? Here’s someone willing to pay me to write for the next few months, and I can’t do it. I want to be a nice safe hands-off consultant.”

  “Maybe it’ll rub off—just by being there. Then, when the movie’s a hit, you can quit your glamorous night job beautifying offices and lead a perfect life!”

  “Writing away to my heart’s content. Right! Now, if I had one of those laptops you’re always talking about, I could bring it along just in case—but I’m not going to Tahiti, am I?”

  Pam returned to her chair and raised her cup as if in a toast. “Dream on girl. Dream on!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ARRIVAL

  “One does not discover new lands without

  consenting to lose sight of the shore

  for a very long time.”

  ANDRÉ GIDE

  Fiona was enveloped by white light as she stepped off the plane. It was stark and blinding, and for a brief, wavering moment she wondered where exactly the plane had been headed. Was she in some outer zone, some no-man’s land, or was she alive at all?

  She began to detect flecks of moving color amongst the white. Her vision focused on swarms of people milling around in shorts, pastel t-shirts, caps and sneakers. She was struck by the intensity of the light. In Ireland and other parts of Europe, the light was noticeably different, more diffuse. The rays reflecting on the architecture and foliage and faces helped to sculpt and create the flavor of a country. Fiona hadn’t expected such a radical difference in Southern California—maybe it really was another planet out here.

  She felt distinctly out of place in her trademark cover-up. Despite Pam’s not-so-subtle hints, Fiona hadn’t changed anything about her wardrobe, but as she looked around at the bare tanned flesh, sun-bleached hair, and gym-shaped muscles, she got an inkling of what Pam meant. The easy voices and friendly gestures complimented the sunny good looks, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, whether she liked it or didn’t. She plunked down on her carry-on bag and looked around—no sign of Declan.

  Fiona was nervous. She had not wanted her brother to meet her at the airport and hoped to sneak in as unobtrusively as possible. It was Julie, her sister-in-law, who had answered the phone when Fiona rang to give the news about the novel and her impending trip to Los Angeles, and it was Julie who insisted they greet her upon arrival. Fiona scanned the entire area, hoping that she wasn’t missing her—she remembered her as petite with shoulder length brunette hair and olive skin. As she stood up resolutely and headed for the baggage claim area a little girl’s voice resounded through the open space and startled her.

  “Aunt Fiona! Aunt Fiona!” Though she knew who it must be she still felt the shock of non-recognition. The designation of Aunt, and what it implied—a belonging, a family—were alien to her now. But there was affection in the call that Fiona couldn’t resist, and she felt an involuntary tug. She hadn’t earned a real claim to aunt-hood but got it anyway, by default.

  She looked around and saw a perky seven-year-old straining on Declan’s hand. In his other hand her brother held the half-completed New York Times’ crossword puzzle. Una was pulling away from her father, trying to hurry him along, and Declan was holding her back with a firm grip. Julie, barely visibly pregnant, walked beside them, and Fiona realized she would have recognized her. She was just as she recalled except her hair was short now and close cropped which accentuated her youthful energy. She gave Fiona a warm hug.

  “Welcome, Fiona. It’s good to see you again.”

  “Thanks, Julie, good to see you too.” And it was.

  Declan reached out and shook Fiona’s hand. Neither of them was totally comfortable with the American way of hugging when you met people. To Fiona it seemed a bit profligate and indiscriminate. If you hugged everyone you met it lost all significance. Despite all this she was grateful for Julie’s warm welcome as she knew it was genuine. Fiona envied her the ease of natural expression. Why did everything have to be so bloody complicated? Why did a hug or lack of require major analysis? She was as bad as her brother!

  Una jumped up to kiss Fiona. “Hi, Aunt Fiona. I’m Una.”

  Fiona bent down to greet her and was charmed by the dancing eyes. “Oh, I know you are! Last time I saw a photo of you, you were just an itty bitty baby.”

  “I’m seven and a half now.” Una informed her proudly. Fiona gave her a big hug. She looked like the Clarkes, Fiona thought, like Declan. Her hair was reddish-blonde and her eyes a gray blue, but her complexion was darker, more like Julie’s. From first glance Fiona felt that she had her mother’s disposition and was glad for her. She thought that her niece wasn’t so much pretty as handsome and that she had an evenness in her glance which defied her years, though she was very much a child. She looked right at you, no evasion. Lucky girl!

  “I didn’t expect you all to come and meet me.” They were walking towards the baggage claim area.

  “Una is so excited about having a real, live aunt, we couldn’t keep her at home,” Julie replied.

  “And she’s crazy about planes,” Declan added, a little too hastily. />
  “I’m going to be a pilot when I grow up!” Una chimed.

  “I thought you were going to be a writer,” her Mom said. Una thought about this for a few seconds. “Hmm. Maybe I’ll be both! Can I be both, Mom? Dad?”

  “Don’t see why not, love,” said Declan.

  “You could write about your flying adventures!” Julie added.

  “Are you staying with us?” Una asked Fiona, now that her future was settled. Fiona hardly got a chance to open her mouth when Declan answered for her.

  “Aunt Fiona has her own place to stay—a hotel.”

  When they reached the baggage claim, the conveyor belt was just starting up. For what seemed like an interminable interval the same three pieces of luggage went round and round, and no one claimed them.

  “Who do these suitcases belong to?” Una asked.

  “Somebody on the same plane as Fiona.” Julie replied.

  “I sometimes wonder,” Fiona smiled, “if every airport puts a few dummy pieces of luggage on the carousel so that all the passengers will think the process has started and they won’t get too despondent.”

  “Is that true?” Una asked wide-eyed.

  “I’m only making it up, Una.” Fiona replied laughingly. “But can you imagine a scenario in which passengers hire their own detectives to go from airport to airport, seize those first fake pieces of luggage and unveil them before the eyes of the horrified staff and tired angry travelers?”

  “Just like in a detective story.” Una offered.

  “Exactly.” Fiona agreed.

  “And it could happen at lots of airports—all over the country.” Una continued.

  “Yes.” Fiona agreed. “Maybe there would be a fleet of detectives, all poised to descend at the same moment at airports all over the country.”

  “And all over the whole world.” Una went on, getting caught up in the game.

  “Yes—the whole entire world. The Airline Sting!” Fiona announced, in her best melodramatic voice. “Then the passengers would riot and tie up the airline staff responsible and put them on the carousels . . . ”

  “ . . . so they’d have to go round and round instead of the luggage.” Una added, laughing.

  “For hours and hours and hours,” Fiona finished up, “so they could get a right taste of their own medicine. The end!”

  “That’s funny.” Una clapped her hands delightedly. “Are you coming over to visit us, Aunt Fiona? When are you coming over?” Una said all in one breath.

  “I was hoping you’d come for dinner tomorrow night, Fiona.” Julie asked.

  Declan had remained doggedly silent during this whole interchange and continued to work on The Times’ puzzle. Now, he broke in and asked her if she had the address of her hotel. Fiona searched in her purse and found the piece of paper where Pam had written down the address.

  “Can you come?” Una asked Fiona pleadingly.

  Fiona was conflicted. She really liked her niece and her sister-in-law, too, but dreaded being with her brother again as soon as the following night. The tension between them was palpable, and Fiona was hoping to postpone the inevitable as long as possible.

  “Santa Monica,” he said looking at it. “This is a nice little hotel, right on the beach, if it’s the one I’m thinking of.”

  Fiona had a longing to be alone. “Do you mind dropping me off there today?” she asked them. “The flight really wiped me out.”

  “No problem.” Declan was somewhat more pleasant, maybe relieved. “In fact it’s only about twenty minutes from our house. Do you want me to pick you up tomorrow?”

  Fiona was surprised by his implicit approval of the dinner invitation and that nudged her to agree to come after all.

  “Thanks. Don’t bother driving though—I can easily get a cab, if it’s only twenty minutes away. I’ll just make sure I have your address.”

  Declan wrote down some directions as Fiona turned her attention back to the baggage and saw hers coming, her new blue wonder. She had assigned the old brown suitcase to the rubbish heap and bought a lovely blue one with polished leather and sparkling straps and buckles. She pointed it out to Una as it sailed towards them.

  “There’s my luggage. Call off those detectives!” She gave her niece a conspiratorial wink.

  “Okay.” Una laughed. “For now!”

  They headed out through the glass doors into the blinding light of the Los Angeles afternoon.

  Fiona understood right away what people meant when they talked about the traffic in Los Angeles. The freeways were ubiquitous, long sprawling fingers of metal and concrete, underpasses and overpasses, spanning the greater metropolitan area. The immediate environs of the airport were particularly congested, but as soon as they got on the section heading to Santa Monica, the traffic sailed along smoothly. Declan kept his attention on his driving. Julie and Fiona sat in the back with Una who was writing notes in a big loose hand on a scrapbook. She was working on getting information for her class project on family trees.

  “What is Grandma Kingston’s name again, Mom? I forget.”

  “Adele.” Julie answered. “And Grandpa Kingston’s is . . . do you remember?”

  “I think it’s . . . Roger.”

  “Good memory.” Julie laughed. She turned to Fiona. “Poor Una has lots of space to fill up and not too many family members. She’s decided to put photographs of everyone in the scrapbook, too, so you’ll probably be solicited!”

  “I don’t have any photos . . . ” Fiona began and then remembered the album. “Well, no recent ones anyway.”

  “We can take a photo of Fiona, can we, Mom, please?”

  “Of course we can, honey. We’ll get some film for the camera—you can take it yourself, if you like.”

  Una jumped up and down at this prospect. “But I might ask you to help me in case I shake the camera like the last time when I took a picture. Remember?” and she laughed. “It was a blurry one of you and Dad.”

  “We’ll make sure you get good ones, don’t worry.” Julie assured her.

  “Oh, yes.” Una spoke rapidly and excitedly. “And I’m going to get pictures of everyone when they were babies, or small children, so we see how much they grew. So far I just have one of me, but I’ll get more.”

  “The grandparents are a bit of a challenge.” Julie told Fiona. “Declan thinks he has some of when they were young stashed away somewhere.”

  “I have an old album with me.” Fiona offered. “I’ll look through it when I get a chance and see what’s there.”

  “Here we are.” Declan announced as he pulled in to a small resident hotel. It was close to the beach and was tastefully designed in a Mediterranean style, duck-egg blue walls, red tile features. It consisted of a series of small houses arranged around an inner courtyard.

  “It’s lovely!” Fiona exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. “I think I was expecting an ugly motel.”

  “And it has a pool around the back—look!” Una pointed out excitedly. “You can go swimming, Aunt Fiona.”

  “Oh, if only I could, Una. I can’t swim.”

  “Daddy! You told me you used to go to the beach when you were small.” Una shouted to Declan, who was opening his car door. “You said you went swimming.”

  “Well, we did. I thought you swam too, Fiona?”

  “Never.” Fiona started to bundle out of the car. “I’ve always been terrified of the water.”

  “You can learn here, Aunt Fiona. You could start in the shallow end—it’s not so hard!”

  Fiona laughed happily. “We’ll see, Una. I can cool off my toes, anyway! And I like this place.”

  “Your producer has good taste.” Julie added. “Bodes well for the film!”

  “I’ll get your case from the boot.” Declan went around to the back of the car as Una squealed with delight. “The boot! Daddy, you haven’t said “boot” forever. And you said it with an Irish accent!”

  Una was still giggling and waving furiously as they pulled away.

  The bag
gage clerk, a young tanned teenager in shorts and a name tag that said “Freddy,” carried her bag to her quarters.

  “The café is open from 6 a.m. ‘til midnight,” he informed her. “And you can order room service, too, during those hours. Sorry about the phone not being connected yet. We get a new service for each customer, and we had an unexpected delay in getting the hook-up, but if you have any messages, we’ll walk them over to you. Or if you need to call out, you may use the office phone. Your line should be all set within twenty-four hours.”

  Fiona thanked him as they approached her suite, number eight, on the side near the beach.

  “The gentleman specifically requested beach side and luckily we got a cancellation.” Freddy told her. “I’d prefer the beach, too, if it was me.”

  Fiona stood in the entryway and looked around. It was a mini suite, designed by an architect, tasteful though not luxurious. It was painted a restful but cheery peach, and Fiona fancied she could smell the fresh, succulent summer fruit. There was a good sized bedroom area with a queen bed, a nightstand, a comfortable looking armchair and a bathroom off the bedroom area. There was also a little kitchenette and a lounge. The whole place felt light and airy.

  Fiona strolled into the lounge which was furnished with a table and two chairs and a writing desk with the requisite hotel stationary. On the desk sat a small computer with a note attached. She slit open the envelope and quickly scanned the note. “Fiona—my treat—sorry the laptops are still out of my range. Maybe by the end of summer they’ll have dropped in price and we’ll get you one in case you head off to Tahiti and are already working on your next novel! Good luck with everything! Pam.”

  Fiona smiled at the thought of Pam choosing this for her. She also felt slightly under pressure, as if she now should really try and produce something on it. She glanced over at the small table, swept off the cotton apricot tablecloth and draped it ceremoniously over the computer. That way she wouldn’t have to see it all the time but knew it was there if she got inspired.