Fallen Idols

by J. F. Freedman

  They got out and lay down on chaise lounges on the deck, towels draped modestly across their midsections, the water rapidly evaporating from their bodies from the hot, dry deserty wind.

  “It's a shame you have to leave tomorrow,” Emma said. “I'd like to get to know you better.” She paused. “We're like sisters now, in a way.”

  That was bold, Callie thought. She had decided not to probe anymore, but here was an opening that shouldn't be missed. “Are you and Walt thinking about getting married?”

  Emma sat up with an involuntary jerk. Her towel dropped to the deck. “Why would you ask that?” she said, a note of perturbation in her voice.

  Callie sat up, too. “Walt mentioned to Clancy that you might be thinking about having a child. If you're planning on having one, you might be getting married, too.”

  Emma shook her head. Her expression, rather than being one of anger or annoyance, was almost sad. “I'm not going to have a child with Walt.”

  “Why not?”

  “This is going to sound callous, but it isn't meant to be.” She hesitated for a moment. “Walt's too old.”

  Callie was taken aback by Emma's frankness. These were the first honest words of consequence out of the woman's mouth since we've been here, she thought. “Men his age have children. He even recited a list to Clancy.”

  “I know. I've heard it. I don't mean too old biologically. I mean he's too old for me.” She sighed. “That sounds cruel, doesn't it?”

  Callie didn't answer.

  “I don't know how much longer Walt and I are going to stay together,” Emma confessed.

  Callie tried to keep her face from registering the shock she felt.

  “I care deeply about Walt,” Emma declared. “He's a wonderful man, and he's been through hell, you know that as well as I do. But when he's eighty, I'll be fifty. I don't want that. I want a man who can be my equal partner, not only in the mind, but physically.” She paused. Like you have with Clancy. A man your own age, whose life is all ahead of him. Not behind him.”

  Callie fidgeted. This was too personal; it was almost painful in its openness. Why are you telling me this, she thought? We are not sisters, not even remotely.

  “I agree there are advantages to being with a partner who's close to you in age,” she said. “I can't imagine myself being with a man—” She stopped herself—she had almost said “Walt's age.” Instead, she said, “That much older than me.” It didn't sound any better, but there was no way around it, no matter how you said it.

  “You're lucky,” Emma told her. “Clancy's a terrific guy.”

  “I know.”

  “All the Gaines men are. Tom, too,” Emma said. “Can I confess something to you?”

  “If you want to.” This was getting closer to the bone than she could have imagined.

  “I almost made a play for Tom, when he was out here.”

  Callie was mystified by this revelation, not that it had happened, but that Emma was confiding in her about it. Was she trying to ferret out if Tom had told her and Clancy? Or was she looking for some way out of her relationship with Walt and was setting herself up to be busted? Either way, this was getting more serious than she'd bar-gained for.

  A confession like that had to be responded to, and she couldn't have held her tongue anyway, this was too juicy.” You're kidding me!”

  Emma looked serious, almost wistful. “No, I'm not. There was a charge between us.”

  “That's pretty heavy, Emma.”

  “I know. I felt ashamed, but it was there, I couldn't deny it.”

  “So did anything happen?” Callie asked, almost too eagerly.

  Emma started to speak, then she paused. “I wouldn't do that to Walt.” She looked at Callie. “Tom would have, though. I could feel it. It was very powerful.”

  Callie felt the need to defend Tom's honor. “You can't say that, since it didn't happen.”

  Emma shook her head in disagreement. “If you had been there, you would have felt it, too. There was real anger—rage, almost—between them, first under the surface, then it broke through into the open. Walt was bullying Tom unmercifully, it was ugly, especially in front of me, a woman who Tom barely knew. Tom would have had sex with me just to get back at Walt.”

  Callie stared at Emma. Am I being set up, she wondered? What's with this sudden soul-revealing? It seemed so out of character.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “We barely know each other.”

  “Because it's wrong for Walt not to be dealing with reality,” Emma said firmly, almost harshly. “He's been living in a false world, ever since his wife died. When I try to think of what it was like for him, her being killed in the jungle, then having to deal with the funeral …”

  The funeral. Callie's mind flashed back to that terrible time. “I know,” she said with sadness in her voice. “I was there.”

  “And then all the trouble with the university afterward, and—”

  Callie put up a hand to stop her. “We've all been through this way more than any of us want.” Sighing heavily, as if the memories were too painful to bear, she stood up. “I'm going inside. I'm tired, and Clancy and I have a long day of traveling tomorrow.”

  Emma got up with her. “I didn't mean to dredge up bad memories.” She took Callie's hand. “I've really unburdened myself on you, haven't I? I apologize.”

  “I'm glad you did,” Callie said honestly.

  “If you can, I'd like what I've told you to stay between us,” Emma asked. “I kind of put myself out there.”

  Callie smiled at her. “I know you did, and I appreciate that. You can trust me. I've been wanting to get to know you better, and now I have.”

  Callie shook Clancy violently. “Wake up!” she whispered urgently.

  “What is it?” he asked in a voice thick with sleep.

  She sat on the bed on her knees. She was bouncing up and down, she was so energized. “I remembered where I've seen her! When we first got here and I asked her if we'd ever met? And she said no? Do you remember?”

  “What're you talking about?”

  “The funeral!”

  “What?” He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs.

  “Your mother's funeral! We were looking at a cluster of mourners grouped around your dad and I asked you about a particular woman. You didn't know who she was, so I asked him. He said he didn't know, that she was one of your mother's friends. But it was her! Emma!”

  Clancy sat bolt upright. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Her hair was layered and a darker shade of blond then, but it was her. You don't remember? Think back!”

  Clancy closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recall. “No, I don't,” he answered, opening them again. “I had more important things on my mind that day. Are you sure? That was over a year ago, and nobody was thinking too clearly back then.”

  “I'm positive! No doubts at all.” She stared at him. “You believe me, don't you?”

  “If you're really sure, then yes.” He leaned back against the headboard, stunned.

  “This points us in a clear direction now,” Callie said urgently. “Walt knew her before he moved to L.A., not after. That changes everything.”

  Clancy nodded. “It sure as hell does. The question is, how did they meet?”

  “And when, and where.”

  He gave her a lopsided smile, shaking his head. “You called it, on the nose. Female instinct about wanting to come out here and see her in person—we laughed at you, but you were right. I will never doubt a woman's instincts again—at least not yours.”

  “I'm glad you're figuring me out, finally,” she teased him. “But that's not important. What we have to do now is find out who Emma Rawlings really is. And what part she plays in all of this.”

  The wind had died down with the rising of the sun. Emma was her usual early-to-rise industrious self. She stood at the center island, squeezing oranges. The coffeepot was perking. As Callie came to pour herself a cup Emma leaned toward
her. She glanced over at the table, where Walt, comfortably disheveled in a T-shirt and shorts, was busy reading the L.A. Times financial section. “Are we still secret friends?” she asked quietly.

  Callie nodded. “Absolutely,” she whispered back.

  “I don't want to hurt Walt, regardless of what might happen in the future. He's already suffered enough.”

  “You can trust me.”

  “Thank you.”

  Walt looked up from the paper. “Sleep well?” he asked his son and daughter-in-law.

  “Like a log,” Clancy told him, grabbing the sports section.

  “Two logs,” Callie chimed in. She and Emma exchanged a quick, conspiratorial look. She kissed Walt on the top of his head.

  “I wish you could stay longer,” Walt said. “You just got here.”

  “We'll be back,” Clancy assured him. “Now that we know you want us to.”

  “Anytime,” Walt told him. “I needed to get my legs under me, but that period's over now.”

  They ate outside on the deck. To go with the fresh juice and coffee, Emma made sourdough French toast, topped with caramelized bananas and berries.

  “If I stayed here a week I'd put on ten pounds,” Clancy told Emma, as he forked up a mouthful of toast.

  “We don't generally eat like this,” she said. “We wanted to spoil you.”

  “You're doing a great job.”

  Callie rummaged around in her purse. “I'll be right back,” she declared. She jumped up and ran inside.

  Walt put his paper down and turned to Clancy. “How are your brothers doing? I know Will's fine, but what about Tom? For real?”

  “He's okay,” Clancy said, pouring milk into his coffee and stirring it “He needed a break.”

  Walt looked worried. “Is he going back?”

  “I don't know. I don't think he knows.”

  Walt shook his head sadly. “All that time and talent wasted. It's criminal.”

  Emma leaned toward him. “It's his life, Walt. You can't live it for him.”

  “Smile!”

  Everyone turned instinctively toward Callie, who was looking through the viewfinder of a throwaway camera. She clicked the button, and the flash went off.

  “That was a good one of the three of you,” she said happily. “Walt, move closer to Emma. Let me get one of the two of you.”

  “No, please,” Emma protested. “I don't like the way I look this morning. I don't have any makeup on, my hair's a mess …”

  “You always look great,” Callie told her, laughing.”Like you just stepped out of a magazine ad. I wish I could look as good as you, first thing in the morning or anytime.”

  “No, really,” Emma said, trying to get away from Walt, who had draped an arm over her shoulder. “I need to refresh the coffeepot.”

  “And … good!” The flash went off again. “That was a nice one. I'll send you copies after I develop them.”

  Emma stood up. “Why don't you leave it here? I'll do it, and send you the pictures. Sometimes when you take a camera on an airplane the negatives get ruined, especially now that they've turned up the X-ray machines.”

  “I've never had any problems,” Callie reassured her.

  “Okay,” Emma conceded. She held her hand out. “Let me take one of the three of you.”

  “Great.” Callie reached toward Emma to hand the camera over, then pulled her arm back. “Except this one's finished,” she said, as she looked at the counter. She dropped the camera into her purse, pulled out another. “This has a full roll.” She handed it to Emma as she I walked over to Clancy and Walt and knelt down between them. “How's this?”

  “Perfect.” Emma put her eye to the viewer. “Smile into the camera, everyone.”

  Walt helped Clancy carry their bags out to the rental car. “Bye, dad,” Clancy said. He gave his father a hug. “Sorry we couldn't stay longer.”

  “Next time.” Walt hugged him back fiercely. “All of you. Will, Tom, Callie. Your baby. A family reunion. We're overdue.”

  “Way overdue,” Clancy agreed. How sad this is, he thought, this deception.

  Walt looked back to the house. The two women were still inside. “What we talked about yesterday,” he asked. “Emma and me. Did you mention anything to Callie?”

  “No, dad,” Clancy answered. “I assumed you wanted that to be between you and me.”

  Walt nodded. “Let's keep it that way, okay? Until Emma and I are ready to go public.”

  “You'll tell me when.”

  They leaned against the side of the car. “Life,” Walt said heavily. “It's too damned complicated, isn't it?”

  “If you make it,” Clancy replied. “Me, I try to make it simple, direct, and honest.”

  Walt nodded. “That's good advice, my son,” he said sagely. He looked back at the house again. “It isn't always possible, unfortunately.”

  “Yes,” Clancy replied, unable to look him in the eye. “I know.”

  CHICAGO

  Tom, wearing polypropylene long Johns under his sweats and a Michigan Wolverines watch cap pulled down around his ears to ward off the below-freezing late-autumn cold, went for a long morning run along Lake Shore Drive. Then he showered, shaved, dressed, made himself a late-breakfast omelet, read the Tribune and Sun-Times cover to cover, and did a load of laundry. By then it was one, and he went to an early-bird movie, a Denzel Washington cop film. When he got out, the sun was already beginning to arc down into the west, casting an industrial-feeling pink-orange glow across the rooftops and watertowers. He browsed a bookstore for a short time, but didn't buy anything—he already had enough unread books lying about the floor of his bedroom. In the end, he grabbed a coffee near DePaul University, checked out the coeds, and walked back to the apartment. It was almost four o'clock. He had managed to get through another day.

  That was the problem. Except when he was working at the bar, he had nothing to do. For a few weeks, when he'd first started there, he had fallen into his old undergraduate routine—sleep late, start the day slowly, then work (it used to be study) late and stay up later. The nights he wasn't working he'd have dinner with Will, Clancy, and Callie, but that was only a few days a week. Mostly, he was on his own. The only friends he'd made were people who worked at the bar, or came in regularly. But meeting people at the bar, in his position behind it, rather than on the customer's side, didn't promote anything deeper than surface acquaintanceship. He had resisted asking Rhonda the barmaid out, because of Clancy's no-fraternization rule, but rules were made to be broken, and he wasn't a normal employee, he was family. Tending bar wasn't going to be his life's work, he wasn't going to be there much longer. Nor was she, once she got her teaching certificate. They could have lunch together, go to a movie, have an afternoon lay. They were both adults, they could be discreet. Clancy wouldn't have to know.

  Of course, she might turn him down. Or she might have a boyfriend.

  He thought yet again, as he watched the late-afternoon news on CNN, about Emma Rawlings. Clancy and Callie had walked Will and him through what they had learned in Los Angeles—most important, Callie having placed Emma at their mother's funeral. That had been an incredible revelation. The overriding question that needed to be answered now, as soon as possible, was how Walt and this woman had met, and under what unsavory circumstances, which would cause her to lie about herself as thoroughly and deeply as she had. They also needed to find out if their father knew she was lying: was he complicitous with her, or was he being duped, too? Given the evidence, they had to assume the former, but they hoped it was the latter. Either way, they had to know. And then, of course, they had to find out who she really was.

  The first thing they did was to check over the list of the volunteers who had accompanied Walt and Jocelyn to Central America, but they'd drawn a blank. They weren't surprised to discover that there was no Emma Rawlings on that trip. Earlier this morning Callie had developed the pictures she'd taken of Emma, and overnighted a set of prints to the L.A. detective. Hopefully
something would come of that.

  Tom's stomach had knotted into a fist as he had listened to Callie talk about Emma. This woman was dangerous, probably a criminal, but he had a raging emotional hard-on for her anyway. That was going to be a sonofabitch to deal with, especially if, or more likely, when, he and she got together again. Before that, though, he was going to have to come to grips with how she played him for a sucker, charming him, seducing him.

  He was going stir-crazy, and the old fifth-wheel feeling was creeping back in. The TV news was depressing. He clicked it off. He needed to do something.

  The accordion file containing the list of the volunteers from the trip to La Chimenea was tucked away in the bottom drawer in the desk in his room. Maybe there was a kernel of information they had overlooked, something peculiar in a résumé. It wouldn't hurt to check it over again. He still had a couple of hours to kill before he had to go to work.

  He started down the list, working alphabetically. The first two names he called weren't in; he left a brief message on their services. The third picked up.

  “Kurt Campbell?” Tom asked, reading from the list.

  “Yes?” came the tentative reply.

  “I'm not a telemarketer,” Tom said quickly, before the man could hang up on him. “My name is Tom Gaines. My father is Professor Walter Gaines.”

  “I see,” came the slow reply.

  “Do you have a second? I have a couple of quick questions.”

  There was a pause.

  “Only a few questions,” Tom reiterated. “It won't take any time at all. I know it's dinnertime, but just give me a minute or two, can you?”

  “Okay,” came the grudging reply.

  “Great, thanks. I appreciate it.” Tom plunged in. “You were present when my mother was killed, weren't you?”

  “Yeah, I was there.” The voice sounded younger, more college-age. “I'm really sorry, man. That was such a stupid, tragic accident,” he added with the anger of memory. “She was a super woman, your mother.”