No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale

by Pope, Christine

  “You look like a gaffed fish,” he said amiably. “Meg up to her usual tricks?”

  “You have no idea,” I replied. Just when I thought she couldn’t shock me anymore—

  “I’m glad I found you,” he continued. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  Immediately I sat up a little straighter. His tone was serious, his hazel eyes intent.

  “Don’t look so worried.” He grinned. “I just wanted to see if you would come with me to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner.”

  That came out of nowhere. For over a week we had danced around the holiday, never really mentioning it. I’d been wondering whether he was going to ask me to come over, or at least to go out for the evening, but nothing. I had tried to convince myself that it really didn’t matter, that perhaps his family wasn’t open to having strangers at their family dinner, that he was obligated to spend the holiday with them even if he’d rather spend it with me—anything except what I feared most, that I just wasn’t important enough to him for us to be together over the holiday.

  Still, I wasn’t going to jump on his invitation like a starved dog on a bone. “Well...”

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “I promise we don’t bite. Most of us, anyway. I can’t vouch for my nephew. He just turned three, and he’s definitely the spawn of Satan, even though he does look just like my oldest brother.”

  “Wow, that sounds really inviting!” But even as I made the protest I couldn’t help smiling.

  “I’ll make my brother tie him up for the night. And I promise that we won’t be relegated to the kiddie table.” He grinned back at me, and I couldn’t help but be struck by how good-looking he really was, how open and winning his smile. “What, would you rather sit home with a Lean Cuisine? Or do you really splurge on Thanksgiving and get yourself a Marie Callender’s frozen dinner?”

  If he only knew how close to the mark he was. “Okay, you win. As long as you promise that the demon spawn really will be tied up.”

  “I’ll do my best. I’m not sure my mother has fully recovered from the mashed-potato incident last year, so I’m sure she’ll back me up.”

  “Mashed-potato incident?”

  “Yeah—Brian thought he’d discovered a new form of stucco and was eager to try it out on the dining room walls.” Randall paused and took in my clothes with a worried look. “You’d better wear something washable.”

  “I think I can manage that.” Frankly, if it had to be dry-cleaned, I couldn’t afford to own it.

  “Great. I’ll pick you up at three.”

  “I could just meet you there—”

  “Absolutely not.” Although he still smiled, I could tell he was serious. “You think I’m going to put you through the whole meeting the parents thing without doing it properly? ‘Meet me there’—I’d never hear the end of it from my mother, even if my slightly misplaced sense of chivalry would let me get away with it in the first place.”

  “Well, okay. Just to keep your mother off your back.” I kept my tone light, but I was suddenly very glad he’d offered to pick me up. All other considerations aside, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about my car breaking down on me on Thanksgiving.

  He smiled. Then he leaned over the table and kissed me quickly on the cheek. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”

  “I’ll hold you to that,” I replied, and we went on to chat about a few other things, the abnormal psych paper that was giving me so much trouble, the unusually damp weather, the exciting news that he had been invited to play with the studio orchestra for a new medium-budget action film, anything but the concerns I had just discussed with Meg. Somehow I knew that Randall would not react well—to put it mildly—to the news that I might have a stalker, and again I tried to tell myself it was nothing. Besides, Meg had said she’d keep an eye out for me, and I believed her. If nothing else, I was sure she was dying to catch a glimpse of the mysterious stranger for herself.

  Soon we both had to leave the café to get to our respective classes on time, and I couldn’t help but take a quick glance over my shoulder as I left. The only person I recognized was Randall, who caught my gaze and who waved and smiled in reply. I smiled back, if a little hesitantly. Good thing he didn’t know that it wasn’t he for whom I’d been looking.

  Restless as a wind-driven shadow, Erik drifted through the darkened hallways of his home, his night-sharp eyes not needing the unnecessary illumination of electricity. The staff had long since retired, but he, as had been his custom for many years, remained wakeful through the long watches of the night, shunning the harsh day and its unforgiving light.

  Drawn there without realizing until he stood beside the door, he paused outside the chamber that had been prepared for Christine’s arrival. Three days, he thought, and laid his unmasked cheek against the cool, smooth mahogany of the door frame. Three days until she slept in the canopied bed inside, until she breathed the same air as he, until she was his.

  Every part of the plan had been gone over in obsessive detail, so much so that even Jerome had begun to lose patience. Usually so controlled, he’d finally lost his temper and snapped, “You pay me a lot of money to handle this stuff so you don’t have to. So let me handle it.”

  Angry as he had been, Erik had had to admit that Jerome was right. Jerome had been Special Ops and FBI before he’d ever hung out his shingle as a private investigator; he knew whom to contact, how to cover his tracks, which loopholes to plug. No, the plan was perfect, as far as he could tell. It was the waiting that was wearing him down, since once they had finalized the plan there was no altering it at the last minute. No amount of money in the world could make the days pass any faster than they already were, and so Erik was left to wait, his temper growing shorter and shorter as the final days approached.

  He’d watched the digital file of Christine’s recital appearance over and over again until he had every nuance memorized, every gesture, every slightest movement, down to the one curl that had escaped the ribbon which bound her luxuriant hair just at the moment she sang “c’est la fille d’un roi”—and truly she had looked like a princess, even in her simple black dress. And she had sounded like an angel.

  Her voice over the listening equipment had been his only other connection to her, the simple conversations with Randall and Meg and a few other friends from school his only means of knowing her. It was with some spite he saw that many of her talks with Randall consisted of rescheduling dates, since both of their schedules seemed to grow increasingly more hectic. All the better.

  Even this last, this family Thanksgiving of Randall’s that she had discussed with Meg earlier in the evening, did not give him much cause for worry. So he wanted to take her home to meet his parents. How sweet. He hoped they would get an eyeful of her that evening, because after that they would never see her again. After that, she would be truly lost to the world, lost to everyone.

  Except Erik.

  Chapter 11

  Randall’s parents lived in Larchmont Village, a lovely area of vintage homes north and west of downtown Los Angeles. As we drove away from the 101 Freeway along Beverly Boulevard, a gorgeous parade of houses passed by outside the car window—lovingly restored Craftsmans, oversize English cottages, stately Spanish-style mansions. We turned right just past Larchmont Boulevard itself and then parked in front of a stunning Spanish hacienda, complete with turret in front and a porte-cochère over the driveway.

  I gave Randall an anxious look.

  He smiled, reaching over and giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay. They’re all going to love you.”

  That may have been true, but at the moment I was feeling more than a little intimidated by the neighborhood and the house in particular. I tried to remind myself that at least the home had been in the family for years and years and hadn’t been purchased during the last housing boom. How much was the place probably worth, even now with housing prices deflated? One million? Two?

  I took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s do this.”

&nb
sp; At that he gave me a quick glance. “You sound like someone about to jump out of an airplane.”

  “Then let’s go before I ask the pilot to turn the plane around.”

  That got a laugh out of him, as I had hoped it would, and we got out of the car and walked up to the house. The front door was unlocked, and Randall led me into a long hall that opened onto a large living room on one side and an equally large dining room on the other. The hacienda theme was carried throughout the interior architecture, as far as I could see; the walls were painted white, set off by dark exposed beams along the ceilings, with heavy rustic antique furniture and gorgeous rugs on the hardwood floors. I could hear the lively sound of conversation coming from the end of the hall, where a combination family room/kitchen area seemed to be located.

  “We’re here!” Randall called out, as I followed him into the family room.

  My first confused impression was of a large group of attractive people, all apparently talking at once. Then the hubbub died down a bit as they turned to greet us, and a pretty blonde woman with Randall’s laughing hazel eyes stepped forward.

  “Mom,” he said, and the pride was evident in his tone, “this is Christine.”

  I stepped forward, hoping I didn’t look as awkward as I felt, and that no one would notice how beat-up my black ankle boots really were under the layer of shoe polish I’d carefully coated them with earlier that morning. I started to extend my hand for a polite shake but instead was clasped to her in a quick hug. Taken off-guard, I stumbled a bit, but then she released me, smiling at the two of us.

  “So glad to meet you finally!” she said. “I’m Denise. There are quite a lot of us, but don’t worry—there won’t be a quiz at the end of the evening.”

  “‘Hey you’ is always fine,” added the tall gray-haired man standing just behind her. “I’m John Cagney.” He extended a hand and I took it, glad that he seemed to regard a hand shake as a perfectly acceptable form of greeting.

  Then it was on to the other people standing in the family room and the kitchen, Randall’s older brothers and sister and their respective spouses. I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep them all straight, but I did manage to remember that his oldest brother was Colin and his sister, Theresa. They all seemed to be very pleasant people, attractive, well-dressed, relaxed.

  From somewhere Randall produced a glass of wine and handed it to me. I accepted it gratefully.

  “So Randall tells me you’re majoring in voice?” his mother inquired.

  “Yes...Denise.” I’d been about to call her “Mrs. Cagney,” but she’d introduced herself by her first name, so I assumed that was how she wanted to be addressed. “I’m trying to decide whether to go on to graduate school or just get out there and go for it.”

  She smiled. “From what Randall tells us, you should take the opera world by storm.”

  I hoped my blush wasn’t too apparent. “Randall might be a little biased.”

  “No, I’m not,” he protested. “Even her voice teacher is bowled over by her. She just needs to get out and be heard.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “having a masters would be a good idea, because then I could teach at the college level if the whole opera thing doesn’t work out.”

  “Not to pontificate,” Randall’s father said, joining in, “but furthering your education is almost always a good thing. Don’t opera singers have a fairly long professional life compared to most performers?”

  “Yes,” I replied. It was true—many classically trained singers performed well into their fifties and even their sixties. It was often said that the classical voice didn’t truly mature until a singer’s late thirties or early forties. Against that sort of time frame, another two years spent in graduate school would not exactly jeopardize my professional career. “I think Randall’s just anxious to see my name up in lights.”

  “Well, there’s more chance of that with you than with me,” he said, his tone deliberately light.

  I could see Randall’s parents share a significant look; this was obviously a somewhat sore point in their household. He’d told me his parents had been less than thrilled when he had switched from the concert performance track to USC’s fledgling accompanist program, one of the first in the country. Best to know one’s own limitations, he’d said, because as good as he was, he knew he wasn’t concert pianist material. He was, however, a skillful and intuitive accompanist and had decided it was wiser to focus on his strengths and try to make a living for himself doing something for which he was much better suited.

  I could sympathize, since my mother had faced her own set of challenges when she decided to abandon her own rewarding career as a pianist to marry my father. They had met at USC—one of the reasons I had decided to attend the school, since I was eligible for special scholarships as the daughter of two alumni. Apparently it had been love at first sight, and they’d married within six months of graduation. Her family had been furious, though, and apparently the rift the marriage caused was so deep that my mother dropped all contact with them. I was never sure whether they even knew I had been born.

  At any rate, I could never understand what they found so objectionable about my father. True, he was nothing terribly glamorous, but I always found his job as a systems engineer at the Jet Propulsion Labs to be fascinating, especially when he’d come home and turn on the television news and point to the hardware for the lab’s latest space venture. “See that, Christine?” he’d ask. “Your daddy helped build that satellite.” Or that deep-space probe, or rover, or whatever the flavor of the moment was. Certainly he’d earned enough for us to be comfortable without being rich, while my mother taught piano part-time so she could be home with me. It had been a safe, secure, nurturing environment—all the way up to that horrible New Year’s Eve when my life had changed forever.

  Randall’s mother looked a little strained around the mouth, but, to do her credit, she forbore from making any pointed comments. “Well, it does sound very exciting. I’m not sure where Randall gets it from—neither his father nor I are at all musical. Were your parents musicians?”

  Were. She had used the past tense, so I knew Randall had told her I had lost my parents, and I hoped there wouldn’t be any awkward questions in that regard at least. It was always a conversation-killer when someone asked me politely what my parents did and I had to reply that they were no longer alive.

  Luckily I was saved from any more discussion on the topic by a series of screams that erupted from beyond the French doors which led out to the backyard.

  “Well, that’s a record,” Randall’s brother Colin said, setting his wine glass down on the kitchen counter and heading out to discover the cause of the commotion. “I think they made it an entire half-hour this time before somebody got scalped.”

  Randall’s sister and her husband followed after him, apparently to provide additional backup if necessary. Randall had told me that his sister had four-year-old twins who were usually quite well-behaved. But throw Colin’s son Brian into the mix, and it was only a matter of time before the combination of the three provided the preschool analog to TNT.

  In the general hubbub that followed, I was able to retreat somewhat out of the way to a couch off to one side of the family room and watch as the twins were led off to an upstairs bedroom where they could be pacified with a DVD, while Brian was given a stern lecture on the evils of trying to get his cousins to eat dirt. As an only child, I hadn’t been around small children very much, and I was a little amazed by the amount of disruption such small beings could create.

  With things brought somewhat back to normal—with the exception of Brian’s continuing whine in the background—the conversation picked up again, but I was able to take my favored role of observer, since Randall’s siblings were talking about all the minutiae of child-rearing—discipline, the problem of the right preschool, and God knows what else. Randall himself took a seat next to me on the family room couch and was mostly quiet except for a few pointed remarks here and there about h
is nephews and niece, remarks that his brothers and sister mostly ignored.

  I was glad to see that it wasn’t long before dinner was ready, and Randall’s mother commanded everyone to vacate the family room so she could get everything out of the kitchen without tripping over someone. My own feeble offer to help was met with a polite demurral, and so Randall and I went to take our places at the dining room table, which was large enough to accommodate all ten of us adults with room to spare. In the corner of the dining room a small table had been set up with plastic cutlery and paper plates for the children—Randall’s dreaded “kiddie table.” Of course there hadn’t been any such thing at my own family’s holiday gatherings; my father had been an only child as well, so it had always been my parents, my grandmother, and myself, since my paternal grandfather had passed away before I was even born.

  Randall has once described his mother to me as “Martha Stewart without the mean,” and once I saw the spread she laid out for us, I could see why. The table itself had a festive centerpiece of warm autumnal flowers and gorgeous place settings of fine china, sterling flatware, and crystal wine glasses, while the food seemed to be of an infinite and dizzying variety—the turkey of course had the place of honor, but there was also smoked salmon and both mashed and roasted potatoes, homemade spiced cranberry sauce and two kinds of dressing, salad, and fresh-baked breads and rolls. Certainly I had never seen anything like it outside the pages of a magazine, but then I remembered that Denise was a food and entertaining writer for a variety of magazines, so I supposed for her this sort of spread was only normal.

  Food is a great icebreaker. Whatever awkwardness I had felt at the beginning of my visit was soon forgotten, as we all talked of normal things, film and current events and everyone’s jobs or school, all the while helping ourselves to the truly prodigious mountain of food Randall’s mother had provided. The flow of conversation was broken up once or twice by a commotion at the children’s table, but the problems were quickly smoothed over—even the kids seemed more interested in shoveling down Thanksgiving dinner than in torturing one another.